British Forces last week began the final withdrawal from their contingency operating base near Basra, Iraq, bringing a six-year combat deployment to an end. Apr. 30 saw a formal handover of authority ceremony, and all U.K. military will be withdrawn by July with the exception of up to 400 personnel who will remain to provide training support to Iraqi armed forces.
All Nippon Airways will overhaul its network, limit investment and undertake “the most ambitious cost-saving initiative in the history of the airline” in fiscal 2009, which began Apr. 1. The network plan includes replacing Boeing 747-400s with 777s on flights to Paris and Frankfurt. Cargo operations will emphasize use of Overseas Courier Service and other partnerships.
China’s new national helicopter champion, Avicopter, will take an increasingly demanding approach to international cooperative projects as it seeks to build an independent brand rivaling the likes of Eurocopter and Sikorsky. Future joint helicopters will have to fit into Avicopter’s own emerging product lineup, says President Wang Bin. And his company’s own technological development path will dominate its approach to business, with foreign cooperation playing only a supporting role.
Your article “Building Green” contains gushing accolades for a green Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified aircraft hangar (AW&ST Apr. 20, p. 63). “This project is proof that the bottom line in green construction is black,” says John Picard, an architect and environmental consultant who works with Shangri-La Construction. May I see the economic analysis? How about the acquisition and maintenance cost of solar panels that will produce “110% of the power requirements” over 30 years?
The third prototype of the Sukhoi Su-35 variant of the Flanker was destroyed Apr. 26, following an incident during taxi trials, at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur manufacturing site, prior to first flight.
Reflecting the continuing tempo of operations in Afghanistan, the British Defense Ministry is extending an urgent operational requirement with Thales to sustain Hermes 450 operations until the company’s Watchkeeper system enters service in 2011. The Hermes 450 contract began in July 2007, with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support provided in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The “fly-by-the-hour” agreement covers the air vehicles and training to operate and maintain the system, along with contractor logistics support.
Sikorsky Aerospace Services has opened a regional spare parts stocking facility with Times Aerospace Korea at Gimpo Aerospace Industrial Complex. The Trumbull, Conn.-based company handles the aftermarket business of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. The new facility, near Incheon and Gimpo International Airports, will receive, stock and ship parts to support the VX/H-92 helicopter, flown by South Korea’s air force. A mix of civil and commercial rotorcraft, including the S-61, S-76 and S-92, will also be supported.
USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael A. Hamel has become senior vice president-corporate strategy and development of the Orbital Sciences Corp. , Dulles, Va. He was commander of the Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center and Air Force PEO for space.
Cap-and-trade? Let’s definitely make it fair but by not questioning the need for it, you are betraying your readers in the airline industry. There are three questions you failed to ask. •Are humans the cause of global warming? There has been a 1.5-deg. rise in temperature since 1850. But there is evidence of much greater increases in the past.
Aer Lingus says losses this year will be even worse than expected, a stark reversal over what the company said only a few months ago when it was trying to ward off a hostile takeover by Ryanair. The revised outlook also has the company reconsidering fleet plans for long-haul capacity. The carrier operates Airbus A330 widebodies and has committed to buying A350XWBs.
Finnair will end the year in the red, the airline said in releasing first-quarter results. To maintain keep load factors, average ticket prices are down 13% and cargo prices 20%. Yield in the first quarter was down 9.8%.
There may be additional repercussions from the photo shoot of a U.S. Air Force Boeing 747 over New York City that alarmed residents still jittery from the memories of 9/11. The jumbo jet—part of the VIP fleet at Andrews AFB, Md.—was accompanied by two F-16 fighters and flew over the New York area to get some iconic photos of one of the airplanes that carry the president. Officials in Washington say they notified authorities in New York, but the public was not informed, causing panic in lower Manhattan.
The European Defense Agency and European Commission are working on an agreement to improve cooperation between the two European institutions. The EC has no military mandate, but there is some overlap with EDA activities in the realm of security and air traffic management, for instance. Currently, the EDA and EC cannot jointly launch a request for proposals under Europe’s framework research program. The goal is to change that mandate, possibly in time for Framework Program 8, due to start in 2013. European officials hope to unveil the outlines of an accord by May 18.
Northrop Grumman Corp. employees Nora Lin and Harry Chen have been honored for contributions to science and engineering at the 2009 Asian American Engineer of the Year Awards . Lin is manager of supportability engineering for the Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems Sector in Rolling Meadows, Ill. She led the campus’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) initiative that resulted in the achievement of CMMI Maturity Level 3 accreditation for Systems and Software Engineering in 2007.
The British Royal Air Force last week hit the 50,000-flying-hour mark for its fleet of six Boeing C-17s. Around 80% of the hours accumulated since the type entered service in 2001 has been in support of operational deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Boeing has been awarded a one-year contract with four annual options that could total $250 million for Mid Endurance Unmanned Aircraft System information-gathering, target surveillance and reconnaissance services in support of SOC. Work is to be completed by the spring of 2014.
Montreal-based CAE will be recruiting and training about 70 pilot cadets for China’s Xiamen Airlines over the next two years at the CAE Global Training Academy facility at Phoenix. The Civil Aviation Administration of China has certified CAE to train up to 150 Chinese students per year.
Boeing flight-test engineers working on the 787 in the runup to first flight are learning how to deal with a “smart” aircraft that is hard to “trick” into simulated flight conditions, says Flight-Test Operations Director Frank Rasor. Boeing is officially saying first flight will occur the end of second quarter. But don’t look for it before June.
Updates to the powerplants, aerodynamics and interior of the 737 Next Generation family are expected to bring a 2% savings in fuel costs, a quieter interior, brighter lights and less hassle for passengers stowing carry-on bags. Advances in computer modeling, materials and manufacturing technology are behind the fuel savings, which come from a combination of improvements in the 737 airframe’s aerodynamics and the airfoils in the high- and low-pressure turbines for its CFM56-7B engine.
An in-house think tank for the Air Force Assn. issued a primer on USAF aerial refueling tankers Apr. 30 to try to bolster efforts to renew the replacement acquisition effort. Rebecca Grant, director of the Gen. Billy Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies and author of the paper, suggests USAF will need a total fleet beyond the 600 tankers now envisioned by the service, and that the KC-X would have to be smaller than the KC-10 but more capable than the KC-135R. She also says: “By failing to get started on the replacement KC-X program, the Defense Dept.
An X2 Technology demonstrator, the flagship of Sikorsky’s R&D efforts, flies over the countryside near Horseheads, N.Y. Military demand for Black Hawks, a revamped production model and mended labor relations have underpinned a dramatic rebound at Sikorsky, enabling it to grow through the current economic downturn (see p. 48). The X2 project aims to develop a high-speed rotorcraft that retains the low-speed attributes of a helicopter. Photo by Stuart Walls for Sikorsky Aircraft Co.
Lockheed Martin delivered the 50th C-5 Galaxy strategic airlifter upgraded with Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) improvements. The aircraft was delivered to Air Force Reserve Command’s 433rd Airlift Wing at Lackland AFB, Tex. The AMP modifications are scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2014. A total of 111 C-5s are scheduled to be modified. Phase 2 modernization will be under the Reliability Enhancement and Re-Engining Program (RERP), which includes installation of GE CF6-80C2 commercial engines.
May 11-14—Fatigue Concepts Course: “Fatigue, Fracture Mechanics and Damage Tolerance of Aging and Modern Aircraft Structures.” Seattle. Call + 1 (916) 933-5000 or see www.fatcon.com May 12-13—American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ (AIAA) Inside Aerospace: An International Forum for Aviation and Space Leaders. “Building and Retaining the Aerospace Workforce.” Doubletree Hotel Crystal City, Arlington, Va. See www.aiaa.org/events/insideaerospace
Climatologist Claire L. Parkinson and astrophysicists Marc Kuchner and Neil Gehrels, all of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, received recognition of their achievements. Parkinson has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering for leadership in understanding sea-ice changes through satellite measurements and for leading NASA’s Earth-observing Aqua satellite mission. She is a senior scientist and Aqua project scientist in the Cryospheric Sciences Branch at Goddard.
