The British Defense Ministry is considering purchasing 200 common mission support systems for its AgustaWestland Future Lynx and WAH-64 Apache helicopters. The terminal would be used to provide the aircrew with a mission rehearsal tool, with the ability to upload and download data from the terminal to the helicopter. The mission support system—if procured—will enter service with the Apache by the end of 2010.
CAE will train pilots and mechanics of Bombardier Aerospace Learjet 40 and 40 XL, as well as Learjet 45 and 45 XL, business jets under a pact that will expand on the companies’ 20-year relationship. Plans call for installation of a new full-flight simulator for the 40/40 XRs and 45/45 XRs at CAE’s Burgess Hill Training Center in the U.K.; a Challenger 300 simulator will be installed at another CAE location in fall 2009, according to the company.
Here comes summer, the season for thunderstorms, long delays and frazzled travel nerves. The Air Transport Assn. is offering commonsense travel tips to ensure “smooth flying,” including having identification ready at the security checkpoint, preprinting boarding passes when possible and checking flight status before leaving home. Fewer passengers—211.5 million—are expected to travel June 1-Aug. 31, a slight decline compared to last year’s 214.2 million, according to the ATA and the Airports Council International’s 2008 summer forecast.
Vladimir Putin, who moved from president of Russia to prime minister on May 8, has announced his cabinet and modified the structure of government. Government officials as a group are playing an increasingly important role in Russia’s aerospace and defense industry, as private capital is squeezed out in the process of consolidation.
Ready for its trial by fire and ice, the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Phoenix Mars lander is set to dive into the planet’s atmosphere May 25, where it must survive temperatures of a 2,600F entry then down to -100F for three months near the Martian north pole.
Swiss Aviation Training in Zurich and Seattle-based Galvin Flying Service have obtained Swiss and FAA certification, respectively, of flight training devices (FTDs) for the Diamond DA42 Twin Star light aircraft. Swiss Aviation received FNPT II certification according to JAR Standard 3 (A), and Galvin received Level 5 approval. Built by Diamond Simulation near Frankfurt/Main, Germany, the next-generation FTDs feature new software and a CAE visual system. The simulators are needed to meet the growing demand for new pilots.
Samtel Display Systems of India and Thales will be creating a joint venture to develop, produce, market and support helmet-mounted sight and display systems and other avionics gear for the Indian market. Samtel will hold 74% of the New Delhi-based venture, which will also supply Thales with components and subsystems to meet its own requirements. The companies are already jointly developing an HMSD for the Indian navy’s MiG-29K combat aircraft and providing cathode ray tubes for Thales displays.
I am appalled that there even is a secretary general of a Civil Air Navigation Services Organization, who pontificates from a perch in Geneva, postulating that politicians—not the market—should and will decide whether aviation as an industry can survive (AW&ST Apr. 28, p. 66). Aviation doesn’t need a debate about the future size and shape of the industry. People vote with their dollars, good sense and feet!
Middle East Airlines is once again falling victim to the unstable political situation in its region. The airline had to shut down operations for several days after Hezbollah fighters took on the Lebanese government. In the process, access to the Beirut airport was cut, forcing MEA to halve flights. The carrier suffered a similar fate two years ago, when Israel was battling Hezbollah and bombed the airport. MEA still managed to turn a profit that year. Years of conflict in Lebanon have effectively depressed passenger numbers to levels no higher than in the 1970s.
Eutelsat has concluded a package insurance deal for launches, plus one year of operation, that it calls one of the biggest ever signed by a fixed satellite service operator. The company said the deal, covering seven spacecraft currently under construction, offers “highly favorable terms” permitting launches using “the full range of available launch vehicles on the market.” The transaction could reduce the threat of a sharp insurance rate hike following a recent spate of launcher and satellite failures.
Curtiss-Wright Controls will provide General Processor Modules to General Dynamics C4 Systems and Rockwell Collins for use on the Integrated Computer System of the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems program. The initial order is for 1,000 modules and is valued at $8 million.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin believes contractor job cuts at the Kennedy Space Center following the planned end of the shuttle program in 2010 will total 3,000-4,000, only about half of the worst-case scenario (see p. 50). The Kennedy workforce totals about 14,000. Griffin believes the cuts won’t be drastic because much more vehicle assembly and manufacturing will be done at Kennedy for the return to the Moon than during most of the shuttle and Apollo programs, when only launch operations were centered at KSC.
Ash coats the ground across Patagonia from the Andes to the Atlantic in this infrared/visible-light view collected May 5 with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (Modis) instrument on NASA’s Terra Earth-observing satellite. Chile’s Chaiten volcano surprised the experts, who thought it dormant after more than 9,000 years without an eruption. The ash plume from the volcano extends eastward across Argentina’s midsection and passes on hundreds of miles into the Atlantic from a point just south of the Valdes Peninsula.
A British Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) update last week into the Jan. 17 crash of a British Airways Boeing 777-200 at London Heathrow Airport identifies “restrictions in the fuel system between the aircraft fuel tanks and each of the engine HP (high-pressure) pumps, resulting in reduced fuel flows,” as the “suspected” cause of the crash. The aircraft was fitted with Rolls-Royce Trent engines.
Easing the path for the U.K.’s fully funded phase of the program, MBDA has test flown a prototype of the Fire Shadow loitering munition. MBDA is heading Team Loitering Munition (Team LM) in addressing the Defense Ministry’s potential requirement for a persistent presence weapon as part of its Indirect Fire Precision Attack (IFPA) program.
In the run-up to flight trials, NASA is preparing to add a special protective coating to the 2.2-ton primary mirror telescope assembly for the agency’s long-delayed Boeing 747SP airborne infrared observatory.
British Airways and BAA have agreed that London Heathrow’s troubled Terminal 5 will be ready to accept further long-haul flights in June. However, the airline and airport authority still haven’t detailed when they will wrap up the delayed transition from Terminal 4 to the new facility. They slowed the move into T5 when operations there encountered major problems—a decision that rankled other carriers slated to move to T5 in the wake of British Airways. In June, flights to New York JFK; Abuja, Nigeria; Bangalore; Beijing; Cairo; Cape Town; Lagos, and Phoenix will go to T5.
As a member of an alumni committee at Southern Illinois University comprised of aviation professionals dedicated to raising scholarship funds for our alma mater, I can attest to Ray Goforth’s concerns about the seriousness of a shortfall in skilled aerospace workers, as stated in his Viewpoint “Outsourcing Hidden Costs” (AW&ST Apr. 21, p. 70).
The NTSB is recommending that the FAA mandate that manufacturers of aircraft equipped with engine turbochargers address inflight turbocharger failure in pilot handbooks and aircraft flight manuals. The move is aimed at outlining what emergency procedures are necessary to minimize risk of fire and/or engine failure in flight, and emanates from the NTSB’s investigation of the May 2004 crash of a Drug Enforcement Agency Cessna T206H at Homer Glen, Ill. Investigators had determined that the aircraft’s turbocharger had failed and the turbine wheel seized.
Scientists from Denmark, the U.K., Germany and Canada are embarking on a three-week campaign to monitor sea and land ice thickness in the far north of Canada and Greenland to establish calibration data for the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 mission. The CryoVEx 2008 campaign—covering three sites in the Arctic Ocean north of Canada and in the Canadian and Greenland icecaps—involves fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and ground measurements. It includes an area of “cold” ice in northern Greenland chosen because of its presumed resemblance to Antarctic conditions.
As it opens negotiations with union machinists on a three-year contract, Boeing is proposing that those at its Wichita (Kan.) Integrated Defense Systems unit be paid on a different scale than the airplane workers in Portland, Ore., and Washington’s Puget Sound area surrounding Seattle, where wages are said to be about 30% higher. In Seattle, an official at the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 said the union rejected the same idea in 2005 because it is a “divide-and-conquer” approach to weakening the union’s bargaining power.
AW&ST: A lot of airlines in Europe and the U.S. seem to be coming to the realization late that emissions concerns will have a major impact on air transport operators. But there’s a perception that the European sector is ahead of the U.S. in responding. What is TAP doing to address these issues?
International Launch Services says an internal Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) has confirmed Russian State Commission findings concerning the cause of a Proton failure in early September. The commission traced the failure to a ruptured gas exhaust duct that caused the turbopump on the rocket’s Breeze M upper stage to shut down prematurely, leaving the payload in useless orbit. The FROB still has to complete its review of the corrective measures recommended by the commission.
Pete McDonald has been named chief administrative officer of United Airlines . He was chief operating officer and has been succeeded by John Tague, who was chief revenue officer.
