A year after completing the purchase of the Czech Republic’s Walter Engines, GE Aviation is pursuing an upgrade to 800-shp. of Walter’s widely used M601 turboprop, beginning a drive to penetrate Eastern Europe’s markets.
Upgraded A-50U Mainstay airborne early warning and control aircraft should start entering air force inventory next year, says Maj. Gen. Oleg Barmin, its head of armament programs. The Beriev design bureau and project partner Vega say the first upgraded A-50U has been completed. The effort is aimed at introducing more modern electronics to the system first fielded in 1984. As part of the overhaul, power consumption and weight also are coming down.
Airlines will increase maintenance, reoair and overhaul outsourcing for two main reasons, predicts Christopher Gibbs, Cathay Pacific’s engineering director. He told AVIATION WEEK’s MRO Asia Conference that airlines generally don’t have economies of scale and are focusing on their core business of moving passengers and cargo. “Major MROs are large businesses” and can have market capitalization that is bigger than most airlines, says Gibbs. For instance, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering has a market capitalization of $2.2 billion, which could put it in the top 15 airlines.
EADS North American Defense received a $247-million contract from the U.S. Army for its Light Utility Helicopter program. The company is to produce 45 UH-72As, 30 medevac mission equipment packages, 30 medevac and 30 hoist B-kits, four VIP mission equipment packages, 11 engine inlet barrier filters, and environmental control and airborne radio comm units.
As promised when first announced in 2005, Embraer’s Phenom 300 light jet received its type and production certificates from Brazil’s ANAC civil aviation authority Dec. 3, one year after the smaller Phenom 100 did the same. FAA certificate award is expected shortly. The $8.14-million Phenom 300 has an IFR range of 1,971 nm. with six occupants and a top cruise speed of 453 kt.
Italy is offering 1,200 more personnel to NATO’s Afghanistan operation, making it the largest contributor of additional troops to the International Security Assistance Force outside of the U.S.’s new 30,000-strong increase. NATO members have already committed almost 7,000 more troops, and last week Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the final figure could be larger. NATO will not say how the non-U.S. contribution is split, leaving those announcements to participating governments.
The European Commission’s latest “blacklist” of airlines banned from operating in European airspace shows improvements in Albania, Angola, Egypt, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. But oversight issues in Djibouti, Congo and the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe have led to a ban on carriers flying from those countries. Yemenia is of particular note in this latest blacklist, since the previous list was issued just days after the crash of IY626, an Airbus A310 approaching Comoros. Ramp checks this year by France, Germany, Italy and the U.K.
Anand Kathula has been appointed vice president-engineering of the Park Aircraft Technologies Corp. , Newton, Kan. He was technical director of structural testing and materials at Epic Aircraft, Bend, Ore.
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) joined the operational world of large unmanned reconnaissance aircraft with delivery Dec. 10 in Israel of its first Heron, a product of Israel Aerospace Industries. The aircraft is leased by the Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. and will be operated by the RAAF in Afghanistan for at least a year beginning in early 2010. The RAAF has an option on the Heron system for two additional years.
Graham Warwick (Washington), Amy Butler (New York)
Officials at the Pentagon appear poised to take a more conservative approach to the $300-billion Joint Strike Fighter program after design changes, parts shortages and out-of-sequence work severely delayed completion of development aircraft. Officials at Lockheed Martin maintain the problems are finally under control and they expect a six-month slip in completing development deliveries.
The Air Force’s outspoken intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) chief, Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, has more predictions about what the military’s future may look like. He suggests that traditional staff designations—A2, G3, J8, etc., which indicate branches of the military and silos such as operations, command-and-control and intelligence—will give way to a more flexible “matrixing” of specialties and a rebuilding of the ISR career fields.
Spanish low-fare airline Vueling is in the middle of a strategic review to determine its evolution. The review is far-reaching, exploring “any mode of growth” in the next years in an effort to regain momentum and become established as one of the big players in the low-fare airline sector.
Schwartz did not rain only on Boeing’s parade. He sent a few dark clouds Lockheed Martin’s way. The Air Force chief squashed the idea of an export version of the F-22 Raptor for Japan, which some had hoped would extend the life of the production line in Marietta, Ga. Three miracles would be needed to realize the export version: relief on the law against exporting the twin-engine stealthy fighter, some way to bridge a likely production gap and someone to pay for the high cost of developing the export variant, which he says would be a tall order.
India’s navy has released a request for information to Boeing for the F/A-18 Block II and Dassault for the Rafale for carrier operations. The action comes as the Defense Research Development Organization says trials for the naval version of the Light Combat Aircraft are likely to be delayed until 2013.
The use of automatic dependent surveillance—broadcast (ADS‑B) to provide cockpit alerts of potential runway collisions is being demonstrated under an FAA effort to accelerate the safety and efficiency benefits of equipping aircraft with the required avionics.
Carl S. Kirkconnell (see photo) has become chief technology officer of Iris Technology , Irvine, Calif. He was a senior fellow/product line manager for Raytheon’s space cryocooler production and development programs and lead technologist for spaceborne cryogenic system designs.
Aer Lingus says that in the absence of a pay deal with the Irish Airline Pilots Assn., it is being forced to implement layoffs beyond those specified in its recent transformation plan. The airline wanted a deal to achieve €97 million ($146 million) in annual savings as of 2011.
USAF Col. (ret.) Ward Heinke (see photo) has become director of cyber-defense solutions for Raytheon Information Security Solutions , Falls Church, Va. He was commander of the 608th Air Force Network Operations Center, Barksdale AFB, La.
Mark Abbott (see photo) has been appointed Cape Town, South Africa-based group fixed-base operations director for the ExecuJet Aviation Group . Honors and Elections
Government backing of improved remote-sensing satellites and growing consumer demand has created a solid commercial market niche for Ball Aerospace. The company is best known for the precise instruments it builds for scientific missions, whether orbiting observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope or climatic missions such as Cloudsat. But it also pursues an annual market for 3-5 high-performance remote-sensing platforms, often with partners, but also by itself with the Ball Commercial Platform (BCP).
The Malaysian armed forces are looking for ways to fund an upgrade of their 28 Sikorsky S-61 helicopters by the company that maintains them, Airod. The contractor says it can improve reliability and performance while lowering operating costs by fitting the aircraft with glass cockpits, composite rotor blades and improved transmissions. Malaysia said last year it would buy 12 Eurocopter EC725s but they would only partially replace S-61s.
European Union emissions allowance (EUA) prices eased back in November on a lack of buy-side support amid uncertainty ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit and jitters over the strength of economic recovery in Europe. December 2010 EUAs became the front-year contract after most over-the-counter forward contracts for December 2009 delivery went to expiry on Dec. 1.
This mosaic of images collected in space by NASA’s three Great Observatories shows the center of the Milky Way galaxy in near-infrared (yellow), infrared (red) and X-rays (blue and violet). Compiled to commemorate the International Year of Astronomy, the image gives one of the most detailed views yet of the galactic core. Produced by the Hubble Space Telescope, the yellow near-IR images show hundreds of thousands of stars and the energetic star-birth regions where new ones form.
The current economic crisis has cost industry two years of growth, says International Air Transport Assn. Director General Giovanni Bisignani. IATA October results reflect a slow improvement trend—passenger demand increased 0.5% compared to the same month last year. While international cargo was 0.5% below 2008 levels, the numbers are “significantly” better than the 5.4% decline reported for September. Meanwhile, passenger and cargo load factors, of 78% and 54.1%, respectively, continue at pre-recession levels—an improvement IATA attributes to careful capacity management.
