Danish F-16s finished 2 missions over Libya

Last Sunday was the second mission of Danish F-16 fighter jets over Libya, since the implementation of the no-fly zone in the country Thursday last week.

Denmark has sent a total of six fighter jets, 132 ground personnel, and additional supplies to the Italian naval air station at Sigonella on Sicily to support the Nato-coordinated action to disable Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s troops and protect Libya’s civilian population.

Major Lars Cramer Larsen of the Royal Danish Defence College told public broadcaster DR that three Danish F-16s were involved in the successful, three-hour mission on Sunday night, which followed on the heels of a successful five-hour mission involving four Danish F-16s.

Codenamed ‘Odyssey Dawn’ the operation includes the participation of planes and ships from eight countries including Denmark, under an American command. French fighter jets fired the first shots in the action on Saturday.

The Royal Danish Air Force bought a total of 77 F-16A/B aircraft in 2 major batches and 2 attrition replacement orders. Of these, 48 aircraft and 14 spares, all upgraded to MLU standard.

All Danish F-16s are equipped with a search light, mounted on the port forward fuselage, in front of and just beneath the canopy. The search light is used for identification during nighttime interceptions, and uses a 450W light bulb.

Late Friday night in an historic vote in the Danish parliament, all of the political parties voted unanimously to support participation in the Nato military action against Gaddafi. The Defence Minister, Gitte Lillelund Bech, told Politiken newspaper that is something Denmark can be proud of.

 

 

Source: Original article from The Copenhagen Post Online
Aircraft Information and photo from F-16.net

Russia Issues Tu-154M Upgrade Ultimatum

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency is telling operators of Tupolev Tu-154M narrowbodies to upgrade their aircraft by July or park them.

The agency’s chief, Alexander Neradko, points to out three major defects that need to be addressed: power failure due to battery overheating, fuel system malfunction and failure of the low-pressure compressor disk on the aircraft’s NPO Saturn D-30KU-154 turbofans.

Power failure due to the battery overheating was implicated in an incident involving a Tu-154M operated by Alrosa Airlines on the abandoned airfield in Izhma, in northern Russia in September 2010. None of the crew and 72 passengers were injured and the airline plans to return the aircraft into service this year after the engines are repaired. To prevent a repeat of the incident, the Russian authority suggests installing a battery failure indicator on the flight engineer’s control board.

The fuel pump issue was highlighted in December 2010 when a Tu-154M operated by Dagestan Airlines made an emergency landing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport; the pilots had not noticed that the fuel pumps were switched off. Neradko insisted that all aircraft of this type should now be equipped with the fuel pump off mode alarm.

The engine problem was highlighted when the failure of D-30KU-154 engines due to a defective disk led to an accident of a Tu-154M at St. Petersburg Pulkovo Airport in 2008 and to a crash in Iran in 2009. NPO Saturn has tried to fix the problem, with some instrumentation introduced to replace visual inspections.

The Tu-154M is the latest model of the Tu-154 family of airliners, which has been the workhorse for Russian civil aviation for more than 40 years. The “M” model entered commercial operations in 1984, but this aging type has been gradually withdrawn from service in recent years. As of the beginning of 2011, Russian carriers operated 81 Tu-154Ms with UTair having the largest fleet of 15 aircraft. The operation of another Tu-154 variant, the Tu-154B, was banned temporarily in January after an aircraft operated by Kogalymavia caught fire during take off in Surgut.

 

-aviationweek.com