French aerospace contractors Thales and Safran are presenting sharply contrasting outlooks on how they expect to develop. Both companies showed anemic growth in revenues last year as other activities failed to compensate for weak civil aerospace sales. Thales’s revenues rose 2% to €12.88 billion ($17.5 billion), although without the impact of an earthquake last April that destroyed a key Italian component plant operated by affiliate Thales Alenia Space, the figure would have been somewhat higher.
Brussels Airlines is adding four African destinations to its network, in the hope of drawing transfer traffic from France through its Brussels hub. The new locations are Accra, Ghana; Cotonou, Benin; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and Lome, Togo. To help support the transfer traffic, the airline plans to boost its Paris-Brussels connectivity starting Mar. 28. Brussels hopes to start service to Africa in July with Airbus A330s. Accra flights will be operated four times weekly and services to other destinations, twice weekly.
Thales Chief Executive Luc Vigernon and Safran boss Jean-Paul Herteman say their companies—both flush with cash and debt-free—are discussing mergers and sales that could make some of their holdings more competitive. However, the precise activities have not yet been identified, Herteman says. One idea said to be on the table is swapping Thales’s money-losing avionics business for Safran’s niche defense activities. Another is combining their inertial navigation systems activities; Safran admits it is struggling to ramp up INS output, which it is seeking to double .
The European Commission is investigating a loan provided to Czech Airlines by a government institution over concerns that it violates state aid rules. After the loan was approved, the government freed up the assets securing the loan, which Brussels believes may have turned the transaction into a violation of state aid rules.
Seekers of airline pilot employment are finding a volatile feast-or-famine job market, where the disparity between pilot furloughs and pilot hiring is glaring, according to FltOps.com, a Web-based aviation career specialist. Since the industry depression started, United Airlines has furloughed 1,437 flight crewmembers. As of mid-February, American Airlines had 1,891 pilots on furlough and is planning another 175 layoffs in first-half 2010, says FltOps. Smaller cargo carriers have been particularly hard-hit, with nearly 19% of their flight crews furloughed.
Boeing’s manufacturing plan for the 747-8 is based on skills honed while building more than 1,400 of the big widebodies over the past four decades. Still, a stretch of its fuselage and a redesign of its wing have prompted the introduction of new tools and procedures .
Deliveries of turbine-powered civil helicopters declined 16% in 2009, and should continue to contract through 2011 as weak order intake, high inventories and tight credit conditions keep an industry recovery at bay, according to a sobering new forecast.
A 12-month funding hiatus may be about to end for a key U.K. project intended to help clear the introduction of UAVs into nonmilitary airspace. The second phase of London’s Astraea program was due to begin in the first quarter of 2009, but government funding was not secured. (“Astraea” stands for Autonomous System Technology-Related Airborne Evaluation and Assessment.)
The U.S. Defense Dept.’s heightened interest in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) appears to be a mixed blessing for General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. On one hand, it is vindication for a company that funded development of the Predator and Predator B/Reaper on its own after receiving only tepid interest from the military .
Eurocopter is calling on manufacturers to show their commitment to reducing the environmental footprint of helicopters by publicly grading the noise and emissions performance of their aircraft. The company has begun rating its own products using metrics it has proposed for industry adoption. The challenge was issued at last week’s Heli-Expo 2010 in Houston, where the European manufacturer showcased the technologies it is developing under the Bluecopter initiative to improve the environmental performance of its helicopters.
NASA has increased funding for the commercial spaceport on its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, in anticipation of increased activity there as it begins to rely on private-sector transport to the International Space Station. The U.S. space agency will add as much as $43 million to its support to the Virginia Space Flight Authority/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport through May 3, 2014, for launching small and medium-class missions.
London is trying to push ahead with key air-to-air and air-to-surface capabilities for its F-35 aircraft, including a medium-range air-to-surface strike weapon. The Defense Ministry’s key procurement decision-making body—the Investment Approvals Board (IAB)—is considering the next stage of the air force’s Selective Precision Effects At Range (Spear) program. This could include initial development funding for the assessment phase of the so-called Spear Capability 3, which is, in effect, a small cruise missile.
Paul Anderson has become a non-executive director of London-based BAE Systems plc. He is retired chairman of the Spectra Energy Corp., a non-executive director of BHP Billiton plc and is a former non-executive director of Qantas Airways Ltd.
While U.S. military acquisition and program officials continue to say they have stretched and innovated to win both conventional and irregular conflicts, they express a lack of direction when it comes to the day-to-day information war. Evidence of this poorly understood conflict is often most visible in the form of constant cyber-probes and attacks that cannot be traced to any government.
The Oneworld alliance will fill one of the largest gaps in its network with the addition of India’s Kingfisher Airlines, increasing member carriers’ access to a market with huge growth potential. The Kingfisher announcement is the latest in a flurry of big wins for Oneworld, helping the alliance emerge from a period of turbulence stronger than ever. In the space of three weeks the alliance has forestalled a defection by Japan Airlines, won initial regulatory approval for closer transatlantic ties, and now unveiled a strategic membership move.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied a protest by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) o f NASA’s choice to orbit the company’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (Ladee) spacecraft using Orbital Sciences’ Minotaur V rocket. The five-stage Minotaur V uses refurbished components from Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles in three of its stages. SpaceX’s protest hinged on the Space Act, which requires the U.S. government to use commercial launch vehicles unless such a move would not be cost-effective.
The end of June is the deadline for a decision on whether to restructure the Bell/Agusta Aerospace partnership and allow AgustaWestland to take the lead in developing the BA609 civil tiltrotor, says Giuseppe Orsi, CEO of the European helicopter manufacturer, which is now the minority partner in the program. Two BA609 prototypes are in flight test, with two more to join the program in 2011-12. Certification is targeted for 2013.
Helicopters are complicated, helicopters are noisy, but helicopters are invaluable. That is the message we have heard for years from both makers and users of these machines. But with public concern over the environment escalating, the value of rotorcraft in their varied roles is being questioned.
Upcoming 747-8F development and certification tests will focus on a myriad of flight-deck and system improvements designed to sustain both the freighter and passenger models well into the 21st century.
CAE has launched a line of rotorcraft flight simulators designed to cost less than training in a single-turbine helicopter, in a move to improve safety by cutting the large amount of pilot training still performed in the aircraft. Prices for the CAE 3000 Series will range from less than $4 million to around $10 million. A fixed-base version meeting Level 7 flight-training device standards features a three-axis vibration platform and CAE Tropos-6000 visual system with direct-projection dome display providing up to 200-deg. horizontal X 80-deg.
Air Force planners are not keen on banning social networking among the rank and file because those capabilities are proving to be good digital aids in combat. “Internet Relay Chat is a good example,” says Lt. Gen. William Lord, the service’s chief information officer. “You have an intelligence analyst in the U.S. who is looking at a live picture of the battlefield while chatting online with a Predator operator that can point [the aircraft’s] sensors.
Boeing hopes to minimize the impact of job cuts on the C-17 line following its decision to slow the airlifter production rate by a third, but acknowledges that some losses are inevitable.
Concerning “MALE Bonding” (AW&ST Feb. 15, p. 30), European nations once more are poised for the last war if they are not taking advantage of developments in the U.S. and Israel in the field of (medium-altitude, long-endurance) MALE unmanned aerial vehicles. Reinventing the wheel has never been advantageous for the taxpayer or the defense establishment. Why not jump-start cooperative agreements with others? There is still plenty of development work to be completed to alleviate concerns about loss of R&D capability.
New details of proposed changes in U.S. space policy show a dramatic shift away from the technology “pull” of a human return to the Moon to a much broader search for new technical approaches to exploring farther afield.
USAF Maj. Gen. Maurice H. Forsyth has been named commander of the Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education/vice commander of the Air University of Air Education and Training Command, Maxwell AFB, Ala. He was commander of the Spaatz Center for Officer Education/commandant of the Air War College. He has been succeeded by Maj. Gen. Robert C. Kane, who was commanding general of the Coalition Air Force Transition Team, Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq in Baghdad. Kane, in turn, will be followed by Brig. Gen. Scott M.
