RATIONAL LANDING DISTANCE RULE

Mr. McFALL. On page 135, you indicate that you plan to propose a new rational landing distance rule for transport aircraft. How long have you had your present rule and when did you decide it needed to be changed?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. Can we provide that for the record? This applies to both dry surface runways as well as wet. We can provide the figures for the record, if you wish.

Mr. McFALL. You must know what your proposed new rational landing distance rule is! What are you trying to do with it? Don't you know?

Mr. ISRAEL. I don't believe there is a rule today that is based on the parameters. It's based on experience. The question is, is it possible to come up with a rule that is based on a formula in which you could put weight and other parameters of the aircraft?

Mr. McFALL. What is the present landing distance rule?

[The following answer was subsequently submitted to the subcommittee:]

The present landing distance rule, incorporated under part 121 of the Federal Air Regulation, is based on the measured landing distance for a given aircraft from a 50-foot height to a complete stop on a dry runway. An "effective landing length" is then calculated by increasing this measured distance by 67 percent for dry runways, with the addition of 15 percent more for wet runways. The rule to incorporate the 67 percent factor was promulgated in 1940 and was revised in 1966 to include the additional 15 percent for wet runways. Experience since that time has indicated the need to update the rules for various values of runway wetness or slipperiness and other operating conditions. In short, rather than the present distance which is obtained by the imposition of fixed factors independent of some of the special aspects of aircraft landing, it is desired to adopt a new, more rational, rule which will reflect actual ranges of operating conditions (glide, slope angles, and touchdown speeds), airline experience, and such other parameters as wetness of the runway.

Mr. MINSHALL. You restated the question. I don't understand what you are doing.

Mr. McFALL. You state that you intend to propose a new rational landing distance rule. It sounds like a good investigation. What is it that you have now that you are trying to change? I can read this in the justifications. It sounds like you are going to do a great investigation. but nobody seems to know what you have now. If you are going to change something, you ought to know what you have now. What are the problems that you are trying to solve?

Mr. MELUGIN. Mr. Chairman, this has to do with the basic certification.

Mr. MINSHALL. This all sounds very well in the justifications. Mr. LUNDQUIST. The total is $470,000 for all flight performance.

FLIGHT PERFORMANCE AND OPERATION

Mr. MINSHALL. I would like to read this into the record:

FACILITIES, ENGINEERING, AND DEVELOPMENT

FLIGHT PERFORMANCE AND OPERATIONS

Complete tests and analysis necessary to substantiate a proposed new rational landing distance rule for transport category aircraft on wet and dry runways. Complete investigation on the merits of requiring a takeoff monitor for transport category aircraft.

Initiate a study of active flight control systems with respect to their impact on safety regulatory criteria.

Continue the development of data base to establish performance and operational airworthiness standards and criteria.

Initiate evaluation of crosswind amelioration devices and establish their effect on aircraft/pilot performance.

How much are you spending on this?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. The total on flight performance and operations is $170,000.

Mr. MINSHALL. Are you doing it at NAFEC?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. A good part of it is being accomplished at NAFEC and some on contract elsewhere.

Mr. MINSHALL. Who are the contractors?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. We are requesting $280,000 for contracts and $190,000 for in-house efforts. Of the in-house efforts $100,000 is for Washington and the balance, $90,000 is to accomplish the NAFEC efforts. Mr. MINSHALL. Who is the contractor?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. We are conducting some of these tests at Roswell, N. Mex., and using a Lockheed-1011 and Boeing 737. The contractors are Boeing and Lockheed. This effort is in support of the flight certification for determining this new landing distance rule. What we are trying to do, among other things, is to measure, determine and predict the wet to dry runway slipperiness ratio. That is what we are trying to arrive at. Part of the work is being done there with those aircraft.

R. & D. EFFORT TO SUPPORT RULEMAKING

Mr. ISRAEL. All of this work is in support of various proposed safety regulations. For example: How important is it to have a takeoff monitor? How important is it to change the rule for the landing distance under wet roadways, which is very hard to establish on a rational basis? It's emperical today. What we mean by "rational" is to reduce this to some way which can be calculated and justified.

Mr. MINSHALL. We also have to consider the pocketbook a little bit. We have been around some of these programs for many, many years. Mr. ISRAEL. It's very dangerous for us to go into rulemaking in these cases, for example, and require that everyone use a takeoff monitor unless it has been adequately justified that it's needed.

Mr. MINSHALL. The chairman asked what is the new rational landing distance rule for transport aircraft? What is there you don't know about the landing distance rule now and what do you want to change about it?

Mr. ISRAEL. The only way to determine the safe landing distance today is to take a specific aircraft to a specific runway after it has been produced. There is no way of knowing beforehand the performance on another runway with a different surface or degree of wetness. We can't easily vary the wetness in live tests. You can't vary the runway and you can't easily vary the aircraft operating parameters. So you end up measuring a specific set of conditions in a very emperical way. There is no way of predicting on different runways with different configuration of the aircraft and different operating conditions.

Mr. MINSHALL. Why wouldn't you know most of those things at the time the aircraft is certificated?

Mr. ISRAEL. This work is in support of certification and in support of changes to the length of runway needed for new aircraft under different surface conditions and different weather conditions.

For example, there can be various conditions of what do you mean by a wet runway. Should we just say dry and wet or should we say dry, slightly wet, and wet?

Mr. MINSHALL. What are you doing in New Mexico?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. We are making actual measurements on those two aircraft, on the L-1011 and on the Boeing 737.

Mr. ISRAEL. The L-1011 will have to land at many different airports under different conditions.

Mr. MINSHALL. How would you go about simulating slush and icy conditions out in New Mexico?

Mr. ISRAEL. You can't do that out there. That is, in fact the reason for this item in the budget. By computer simulation and analysis, we attempt to determine what effect various levels of water, slush, snow, and ice would have on the stopping distance of a new aircraft, such as the L-1011. One of the types of very difficult parameters is the surface traction. Because few runways have the same surface traction, we are forced today to make measurements on a particular aircraft under particular conditions and find it very hard to extrapolate it to a new airport, a new type of concrete, or a new aircraft.

Mr. McFALL. Is this going to be directed toward the wide-bodied jet and the particular problems you have with the wide-bodied jet in landing and takeoff?

Mr. ISRAEL. I think it's directed toward the safety of all transport aircraft.

PRIMARY CAUSES OF GENERAL AVIATION ACCIDENTS

Mr. McFALL. What are the primary causes of general aviation accidents and how is your general aviation safety research designed to deal with these problems? Put that in the record.

Mr. ISRAEL. Yes, sir.

[The information follows:]

National Transportation Safety Board statistics show that
between 85 and 90% of all general aviation accidents are associated
with human error or human failure. While we recognize it is
impossible to "package" a pilot in such a manner that he can not
injure himself or others, our research, engineering and development
programs are directed towards providing the means to reduce the 85
to 90% statistics and to eliminate from the remaining 10 to 15%
everything within our sphere of influence. The scope of this
problem and our activities to meet it extend across several of our
appropriations. The comments which follow, therefore, do not relate
solely to our efforts within the Facilities, Engineering and
Development appropriation, which we are presently reviewing.

To assist during the critical approach and landing phase we are
working on a system which would project pertinent instrument readings
on the aircraft's windshield to eliminate shifting the focus of
attention; the utilization of auditory signals to provide the pilot
necessary information on flight path and altitude deviations; the
utility of a new Digital/Pointer Altimeter Format and a study to
determine the minimum number of visual cues for a safe approach and
landing.

Continual studies of the role toxic substances play in aetidents are
conducted. These studies, in addition to providing the basic
information as to when such substances would impair a pilots
performance and provide a major input in the educational programs
carried out to assure the aviation community is aware of the results
of the use or exposure to such substances.

Various techniques to prevent disorientation and vertigo in pilots are
being studied and evaluated in order to arrive at a standardized optimum
training procedure to prevent disorientation; a study to improve cockpit
to ground and ground communications in order to improve speech
reception are being conducted and experiments in a simulation
environment on the influence of fatigue and sleep loss on pilot
performance are continuing.

The use of the psychosocial reconstruction inventory has yielded clues
to the solution of pilot behavior as a probable element in accident
causation.

We are developing modified fuel systems to reduce post-fire crashes;
testing and evaluating methods and techniques to improve weather
collection, dissemination and forecasting; developing weke vortex
avoidance systems; developing and testing an Intermittent Positive
Control (IPC) service as an alternative to an airborne Collision
Avoidance System (CAS). The IPC and Discrete Address Beacon System (DABS),
which is needed to support this service, have been designed with
general aviation as one of the major users and their needs have been of
overriding consideration. We are pursuing an active program to automate
and modernize the flight service station (FSS) function providing
broader and better service; testing of general aviation CAS equipments;
and developing techniques and equipments which will provide a ground
proximity warning system.

WEAPON AND EXPLOSIVE DETENTION DEVICES

Mr. McFALL. What is the status your research on weapon and explosive detection devices? Don't you presently have electromagnetic detection devices which are currently being used at air carrier terminals?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. We continue to look at two areas. We are looking at non-imaging X-ray systems for inspecting hand carried baggage for weapons. For checked luggage, we are looking at seeding of explosixes so that these explosives can be detected more rapidly. We are also looking at the use of thermal neutrons as a detection device for explosives in checked baggage.

Mr. McFALL. Is this what North American has?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. North American Rockwell did an experiment for us 2 years ago. It was a crude experiment. It was large and expensive. We have embarked on a refinement of that particular system. We are working very closely with the Atomic Energy Commission because of possible radiation safety hazard problems.

Mr. McFALL. You have electromagnetic detection devices currently being used. Are you trying to improve those?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. These devices are primarily for detecting weapons carried on the person as he boards the airplane. Some of those are extremely effective in detecting weapons. I think the record will speak for that. Using these detectors, we have found a number of concealed weapons, knives, and other instruments on people boarding aircraft. Mr. McFALL. The X-ray is only for baggage, correct?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. The X-ray is for hand carried baggage. There is also the check-in baggage. We would like to check that too, as it goes through the baggage conveyor belt to make sure there are no explosives in it. That is why we have suggested the seeding with an agent during manufacturing process of all explosives. We are also looking at X-ray devices and thermaneutron detection devices for this purpose.

NUMBER OF WEAPONS DETECTED

Mr. McFALL. Can you provide some information on the number and types of weapons your present devices have detected at airports? [The information follows:]

NUMBER AND TYPES OF WEAPONS DETECTED DURING 1973

There were 57,651 weapons and other potentially dangerous items discovered at the passenger screening stations during the year 1973. Included in this number were 2,162 guns, 3,459 explosives, 23,290 knives, and 28,740 other items considered to be potentially dangerous such as mace, tear gas, et cetera.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION RESEARCH

Mr. McFALL. You are requesting about $5 million for environmental protection research. You indicate, on page 138, that one of your ob jectives is to develop economically acceptable retrofit programs to minimize current aircraft engine noise. What do you consider to be an economically acceptable retrofit program? You have been doing this for many years now. We have a retrofit program which is underway. Mr. LUNDQUIST. Yes, sir. We have a notice of proposed rulemaking out to require the retrofit to bring the earlier jet aircraft down to FAR Part 36. This is a result of the development work that we conducted on the Boeing-707 and DC-9. This was the treatment of the engine nacelles with sound absorbing material. They were successful and they did bring the aircraft noise down with no performance penalty. We are now proceeding with a commonality study, taking the work we did on the Boeing-707 and applying that to the nacelle of a Douglas DC-8 and conducting ground tests and also bringing that along for certification as a flight worthy modification.

Mr. McFALL. They use essentially the same engine, don't they?

Mr. LUNDQUIST. The same engine but the nacelles can be different even on the different series of the same model-type aircraft. For example, there are different configurations of Boeing 707's that have slightly different nacelles. They each may require slightly different nacelle soundproofing treatment. However, we are almost certain that the design we used on the 707 engine nacelles with minor modification will work just as well on the DC-8.

Mr. ISRAEL. We are not asking for funds in 1975. This is a perfect example of a major R. & D. program that has been successful. It is successfully completed. The proposed rulemaking is proceeding.

Mr. McFALL. That is interesting information. The $5 million for environmental protection research does not include the noise treatment. Mr. ISRAEL. The noise or acoustic treatment were completed in the 1974 budget.

Mr. MCFALL. The $5 million is going to be spent some other way, is that correct?

Mr. ISRAEL. The $5 million goes into four major areas: Pollution. some other aspects of noise relating to and including sonic boom; environmental; and climatic impact. We were spending roughly $4 million on the engine noise last year. That is completed.

Mr. LUNDQUIST. $1.8 million of that is to carry on the climatic impact assessment program that has been started by the Office of the Secretary of Transportation.

ENGINE CORE NOISE

Mr. McFALL. On page 141 you say, "Noise. Core Engine Noise. Certification To initiate development of noise certification criteria."