The Philadelphia Inquirer du lieu suivant : Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 4

4-A Wednesday, March 7, 1990 The Philadelphia Inquirer i FAA proposes rules for older Boeing planes force formed in the wake of the April 1988 Aloha Airlines accident, in which nrtrtinn nf thpnlanes in sfi- 9 With parachute in tow, old No. r. lage tore away in flight. One flight attendant was killed, and 64 passen -gers and crew were injured. The 19 year-old plane, one of the oldest in" service, had made 90,000 flights, to--- Sill vestigators blamed metal fatigue for j.

While the number of Boeing1- planes subject to tne metai laiigue. ruies is relatively soiau, win iu-. crease as the fleet ages. The aircraft. industry estimates that 1,300 Boeing planes worldwide will eventually be.

affected because foreign govern- 17972 lands at Dulles. The spy plane will be housed at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. By James R. Carroll Inquirer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Almost two years after metal fatigue was blamed for causing part of a Boeing 737 to rip open in flight over Hawaii, the Federal Aviation Administration yester- day took two steps to combat metal weakness and corrosion on aging Boeing aircraft. First, airlines will be required to repair or replace certain parts on older Boeing airplanes, beginning April 17.

The modifications, which will initially affect 115 Boeing 727s, 737s and 747s in domestic service, are aimed at preventing dangerous fatigue cracks that could cause an airplane's structure to fail. The FAA estimates that the changes will cost as much as $142 million. Second, the FAA proposed for the first time limiting the amount of corrosion allowed on aging aircraft built by Seattle-based Boeing Co. and requiring the airlines to establish comprehensive inspection and maintenance programs to combat corrosion. Those proposed rules could take effect by late summer.

Rules on cracking and corrosion that cover older planes built by McDonnell Douglas Corp. of Long Beach, and other manufacturers, will be issued later this year. FAA Associate Administrator Anthony Broderick said the steps should guarantee that older planes are as safe as newer ones. He added that the programs would make set-. ting a mandatory retirement age for aircraft unnecessary.

The FAA's actions paralleled recommendations from an industry task This 'Blackbird' can real Up above, though, the trip was rel-. atively uneventful, the crewmen said at a news conference later. Flying above 97 percent of the Earth's atmosphere, there is little wind and hardly any turbulence. At the airport, meanwhile, where the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum plans to house the SR-71, a crowd of several hundred reporters and, well-wishers also waited the jet's arrival. After setting the record, the 107-foot-long plane refueled in the air and then landed on a distant runway about 10:50 a.m., popping an orange drogue chute to help slow it down.

Painted a charcoal black with red roents are expected to adopt similar rules. The will have four vears to-. make 16S mandatory repairs and; parts replacements for metal on the Boeing planes. Which plane are selected for special attention de- pends on their ages or on how many takeoffs and landings they have made. Broderick said many airlines have already done the work as part of i routine maintenance and overhauls.

Most of the repairs are required on aircraft fuselages, but portions of i wings, doors, tails, landing gear and engines are included. When the corrosion regulations for Boeing aircraft are made final, airlines will have to monitor more than 100 places on each model type for signs of flaking, rusting or con- taminated metal caused by moisture or chemicals. Broderick said the most serious corrosion problems are in sections of fuselage underneath aircraft kitch- ens and lavatories. Associated Pres trim, it resembled a dignified Darth Vader as it whined down a concrete strip toward the spectators. And as the ground crew chocked its wheels and its mighty engines were shut down for the last time, there were tears among many of the men who cared for the "Blackbird" for 28 years.

Air Force Gen. Harold B. Adams, who made the record-breaking Lon-don-to-Los Angeles flight, spoke with a trembling voice as he helped hand over the plane to the museum. "Take care of her," he said over the public address system. "She's a truly magnificent machine.

And she's retiring as a winner." ly fly BEFORE WE AY GO ODBiE. YOUIL "FIND PLANE, from 1-A Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum in Washington. And, with a touch of space-age barnstorming, the museum and the Air Force decided to let the plane go out setting a record. There was no doubt the SR-71 could do so. Built in the early 1960s by Lockheed secret "Skunk Works," the craft was designed to be a reconnaissance plane that would fly too high and too fast to be shot down by enemy missiles.

The design was good, but a problem developed with the name. The plane was supposed to be named the RS-71 for reconnaissance and surveillance. But when President Lyndon B. Johnson made the first public announcement of the jet dunng a 1964 television broadcast, he got the letters mixed up and called it the SR-71. And SR-71 it stayed.

Plane No. 17972 began its operational career in 1969 in the skies over Hanoi and Haiphong during the Vietnam War. It later went on to set speed records in the mid-1970s by flying from New York to London in 1 hour and 54 minutes, and from London to Los Angeles in 3 hours and 47 minutes. But it had never tried the U.S. coast-to-coast record.

The old record was set in 1963 by a Boeing 707 that new irom new yoik to uaniornia in 3 hours and 38 minutes, with an average speed of 680.9 m.p.h. The previous Los Angeles-to-Wash-ington record, which the SR-71 also broke yesterday, was set in 1983 by a Gates Learjet. It made the flight in 4 hours and 12 minutes, with an average speed of 548.8 m.p.h," By the way, aerial record breaking from spy planes to hang gliders is overseen by a Washington-based group called the National Aeronautic Association, which was founded in 1905 and which reports to the Federation Acronautique Internationale, in Paris. University's film on Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. Nearly 4,000 feet of film on Albert Einstein that was part of a University of South Carolina collection fell out of a delivery truck and has been missing for a week, officials say.

"From a historical standpoint, it is absolutely irreplaceable," said Don McCallister, assistant archivist for the university's News Film Library. The film shows Einstein appearing i A GOOD Both organizations go back to the early days of aviation, when records were set in planes made of wire and wood. Indeed, the first transcontinental flight was made in 1911 by Calbraith Perry Rodgcrs in a plane called the "Vin Fiz." It was made of spruce and fabric and powered by a 35-horse-power engine. Rodgers made numerous stops, crashed into a tree once and required two months to complete the trip. Average speed: 52 m.p.h.

The first nonstop flight was made in 1923 from New York to San Diego by J.A. Macready and Oakley Kelly. They flew a T-2 Fokker Transport and made the trip in 26 hours and 50 minutes. Amelia Earhart made the first transcontinental flight by a woman, in 1932, from Los Angeles to Newark in about 19 hours. So it was with the ghosts of great aviators past that the SR-71 took to the skies over California in the predawn darkness yesterday.

With Air Force Lt. Col. Raymond E. Yeilding, 41, and Lt. Col.

Joseph T. Vida, 47, aboard, the jet took off from a desert air base about 4:30 a.m., Pacific. time. The craft flew out over the Pacific, where its fuel tanks were filled by two tanker planes. Then Yeilding, the pilot, lit the engines' afterburners which ignite with a flash of green flame and headed through a series of seven radar gates set up across the country to clock the flight.

The jet hit the first gate at 9 a.m. EST, cleared Kansas City 40 minutes later, St. Louis 6 minutes after that and tore through the last gate at 10:08 a.m. At just about that moment a sharp, quick thunderclap was heard at the airport here as the supersonic jet passed unseen overhead. "That's him," said Bob Applin, a veteran SR-71 engine mechanic awaiting the plane's arrival.

"He's cooking." Einstein missing at various events during the 1930s. The university was sending the film to Audio Plus Video International in Northvale, N.J., so it could be copied onto videotape. On Feb. 27, a delivery truck carrying the film left the Federal Express office in ColumbiaA few blocks down the road, the driver realized the back door had opened. Federal Express workers could not find the package.

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