The convulsed, multiyear saga of the U.S. Air Force’s attempt to field a modern fleet of refueling tankers seems to have come full circle. It started in 2002 with Boeing winning an agreement to lease aircraft to the Air Force without having to compete for business valued at billions of dollars, then losing the contract, followed by a competition in which a team of Northrop Grumman and rival Airbus’s parent EADS won it—only to lose it following Boeing’s successful protest.
Airbus’s decision to boost narrow-body production signals the beginning of the end of the commercial air transport downturn, but company officials and industry analysts warn there will be a lag before order activity rebounds significantly.
Although it suffered a record $712-million loss in 2009, Hawker Beechcraft is now better positioned to weather economic storms, says Chairman and CEO Bill Boisture. “Last year, we took $200 million out of our manufacturing costs,” Boisture says. “We wrote down hundreds of millions in obsolete stock, aluminum” and unusable parts. He says demand is strong for his company’s new AT-6 light-attack variant of its T-6 Texan II trainer and MC-12 surveillance aircraft.
There was a brief show of bipartisan unity earlier this year on Capitol Hill, but it was hardly uplifting. Democrats and Republicans joined forces in the Senate to shoot down a bill that would have created a task force to draw up options for reducing the federal budget deficit. The proposal would have put lawmakers on the spot by requiring them to vote for both spending cuts and tax increases. A few days later, President Barack Obama unveiled a Fiscal 2011 budget request that envisions another $1.3 trillion in red ink, raising the federal debt above $15 trillion.
The Indian government has finalized the contract with AgustaWestland to buy 12 AW101 helicopters for government VIP transport. The helicopters, being bought under a contract valued at $760 million that includes support, will be operated by the Indian air force. Deliveries of the Yeovil, England-built rotorcraft are expected between 2012-15. India is buying the helos to replace its Mil Mi-8s. The modernization program gained a sense of urgency following the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 and last year’s crash of an Mi-8.
In a decade at the helm of Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall has consolidated the Paris-based company’s hold on the commercial launch sector, bringing it back from a catastrophic Ariane 5 ECA inaugural launch failure in December 2002 and instituting a policy of incremental performance improvements, minimum design changes and strict adherence to quality and reliability objectives that has helped it maintain a commanding market share.
BAE Systems has reduced its stake in Saab. BAE pared its holding to 10.25%, half its previous total by selling more than 11 million Saab “B” shares to Investor AB, the Swedish investment group that is already a major Saab shareholder. BAE signals it will sell the rest “in due course.”
Marzel Neckien, president of W Machine Works, San Fernando, Calif., has been appointed chairman of the Supplier Advisory Council , which is the Irvine, Calif.-based Supplier Excellence Alliance’s aerospace and defense supplier leadership panel. New council members are: Douglas C. Greene, president of Hixson Metal Finishing, Newport Beach, Calif.; Kenny Heifner, vice president of SMS Technologies of San Diego; Tim Holland, CEO of the Graco Supply Co. of Fort Worth; Joe Yockey, owner/principal of Joined Alloys of Phoenix; Patrick H.
Lawmakers are struggling to defuse the bomb dropped by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), now officially described as the incoming defense appropriations subcommittee chairman, prohibiting congressional spending earmarks geared for corporations and other for-profit entities and requiring audits to enforce the rule. “This new oversight measure is to ensure that earmarks go to their intended purposes and to prevent for-profits from masquerading as non-profits,” the lawmakers say.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. (ret.) Peter M. Dawkins, who is founder and principal of ShiningStar Capital, has joined the board of directors of Iridium Communications Inc. , Bethesda, Md.
The last of Afghan aircrew and flight engineers (below) to undergo training at the U.K. Defense Ministry’s Boscombe Down flight test center in southern England will be heading home. The program—known as Project Curium—will end this month with 27 Afghan personnel having undergone the training (AW&ST Mar. 8, p. 33). The curriculum for pilots consists of two flying periods interspersed with ground school. Basic flying is performed on the Gazelle; advanced training takes place on Mi-17s.
Europe’s efforts to stabilize the Airbus Military A400M development and production program are far from finalized even though industry and the seven countries backing the program have agreed on a new financing scheme to cover several billion euros in cost overruns. There are still many difficult issues to be resolved, including exactly how many airlifters each country is buying, how to allocate €1.5 billion ($2 billion) in export levy facilities, and how to determine legal liabilities between the prime contractor and its suppliers.
Hawaiian Airlines, looking for long-range fleet expansion, last week added a firm order for one Airbus A330-200 to its existing order for six of the aircraft type as well as six A350-800s. The carrier also leases three A330s. The A330-200s, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines, are scheduled to be delivered this year. The aircraft will seat 294 passengers in a two-class configuration.
Heavy demand from government customers helped generate solid growth at Intelsat and Inmarsat last year—a trend that can be expected to accelerate in future years. The strong showing underscored continued growth across the satellite telecom sector (see p. 48).
The NTSB is determined to improve human-machine interface in modern general aviation (GA) cockpits after a study determined that advanced avionics in light aircraft are not yielding a better safety record than in aircraft with conventional instruments. The safety board last week released the findings of a study it launched more than a year ago with help from the FAA, General Aviation Manufacturers Assn., and aircraft manufacturers Cessna Aircraft and Cirrus Design Corp.
Northrop Grumman’s decision not to bid for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X aerial refueling tanker contract is being met with a private sigh of relief from Pentagon officials. Another round of contentious competition has been averted. But the officials’ sigh is likely being followed by an uneasy gasp at the tough challenge of negotiating a sole-source deal with Boeing that could endure to 2027.
The average per-unit cost of the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter has jumped from $50 million to as much as $95 million in Fiscal 2002 dollars, says Ashton Carter, the Pentagon acquisition chief, in Senate testimony last week. In today’s dollars, that makes the per-unit cost an estimated $112 million. Senate Armed Services Chair Carl Levin wonders if Lockheed Martin knowingly “bought into” the program by proposing an unrealistically low price during the competition with Boeing, and later recouping the money through repeated cost overruns.
The parent company of U.S. low-cost carrier Allegiant Air has signed an agreement with an unidentified European operator to acquire six used Boeing 757-200 aircraft, after Allegiant’s leadership decided the financial reward from offering service to Hawaii offsets the complexity of adding a second aircraft type to its MD-80 fleet. Allegiant Travel President and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Levy says limiting the 757s to Hawaii service would also simplify mixed-fleet operations.
Somon Air has ordered two Boeing 737-900ERs to add to two 737-800s it flies on routes to Russia, Germany, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The -900ERs are its first direct purchase from Boeing.
United Airlines formally ordered 25 Airbus A350-900s last week, completing a pledge it made in December to draw from both Boeing and Airbus for updates of its mid-size, long-distance fleet. Deliveries are to begin in 2016 and run through 2019. The move pushes Airbus’s order book for the 270-350-seat family to 530 aircraft. United says the A350s will replace 24 Boeing 747-400s, while 787-8s succeed 35 767-300s.
If $25,000 and a commitment for two or more months in space is too steep a price for a student experiment on the International Space Station, how about a ride for less than $10,000 for two weeks on the space shuttle? That is the approach taken by American Aerospace Advisers, which agreed Mar. 5 to rent a “2U”—the equivalent of half a NanoRack—on STS-133, the last scheduled shuttle mission.
Capt (ret.) William M. Delaney states that the stick shaker is outdated and the air data computer should instead give the oral warning “Airspeed, Airspeed” when it sees a dangerous trend (AW&ST Feb. 15, p. 8). Perhaps that should be refined to “Airspeed too low, Airspeed too low” or “Airspeed too high, Airspeed too high.”
Finmeccanica is looking to further increase its business activity in the U.S., capitalizing on its acquisition of DRS Technologies. The company has long eyed the U.S. and, through a growing industrial footprint, has tried to make it a “home market” in addition to Italy and the U.K. A round of upcoming helicopter competitions will prove a crucial test case for that business plan.
