FAA experts questioned battery safety in 2010

Seasons greetings from Iceland came early in 2012, carried aloft by seven jolly men in a newly upgraded Bombardier Dash 8 Q300. The aircraft, a maritime surveillance platform belonging to the Icelandic Coast Guard, flew for 8 hr. and 1,835 nm from Reykjavik to Moncton on Dec. 18 via a fuel stop in Goose Bay, Labrador. The goodwill mission aimed to help Toronto-based Field Aviation, the aircraft modification company that installed a new flight deck on TF-SIF, the Q300's Icelandic registration, in 2011.

The vote on Boeing Commercial Airplanes' proposed contract for 22,900 engineers and technical workers at factories in California, Oregon, Utah and Washington state will be pushed back about two weeks but union negotiators are still expected to recommend a “no” vote and ask for a strike. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (Speea) now expects to count ballots about Feb. 18. If union members reject Boeing's offer of a contract through 2016 and authorize a strike, picket lines could go up immediately.

Embraer seeks to diversify with addition of helicopters

Revamped regulations could alter aviation sector

As it continues to cement its place as an “American” gas turbine engine manufacturer, Rolls-Royce is enlarging its advanced manufacturing capacity in Virginia while tapping automation and evolved machine tooling at its industrial base here in Indianapolis.

We are accustomed to seeing airliner wings change shape on approach, deploying flaps and opening slots to increase lift and reduce landing speed. But for most of the flight, changes are restricted to small movements of individual surfaces as the aircraft maneuvers or reacts to turbulence. Now, in pursuit of higher fuel efficiency, NASA and Boeing are developing technology to smoothly change the wing's shape continuously throughout the flight—even characteristics such as twist that are traditionally built into the wing during design and manufacture.

As the Boeing 787 fleet remains grounded due to safety issues with its lithium-ion batteries, the Joint Strike Fighter program office is not saying whether the issue will prompt any review of the F-35's electrical system, which incorporates a lithium-ion battery that is larger and higher-voltage than the 787's and has a once-per-sortie charge/discharge cycle. Made by a U.S. subsidiary of France's Saft, the JSF battery is the only onboard means of starting the fighter's integrated power pack, which starts the engine.