May 27-29—Shared Vision of Aviation Safety Conference. Omni Hotel, San Diego. Call +1 (856) 667-6770 ext. 163, or see www.aqp-foqa.com/Conferences/2008/index.html May 27-29—Shephard Group’s Unmanned Vehicles Pacific Conference and Exhibition, and Heli-Pacific Conference and Exhibition 2008. Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, Australia. Call +44 (162) 860-6971 or see www.shephard.co.uk/events May 27-June 1—ILA Berlin air show. Berlin Schoenefeld Airport. Call +49 (30) 3038-6006 or see www.ila-berlin.de
BOC Aviation will raise another $1 billion in capital over the coming year, and believes this is the time to invest in aircraft. It plans to spend the money not with Boeing and Airbus but, rather, in buying aircraft from airlines and leasing them back to sellers.
The Philippine air force’s $13.8-million order for an additional batch of 18 Alenia Aermacchi basic trainer SF-260Fs includes training for both pilots and support personnel, along with spares and support equipment. Deliveries are slated to start in May 2009 and be completed 18 months from then. The service has operated MP piston-engine models beginning in 1973, as well as SF-260 turboprops. It also uses the S-211 jet trainer. The SF-260 will do double duty as a basic trainer and a light attack aircraft.
Amy Butler (Washington), John M. Doyle (Washington)
The Government Accountability Office last week denied legal motions from the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman to dismiss some of Boeing’s claims in its protest of the KC-X award. This will allow for a full review of the USAF decision to give a $35-billion contract to an Airbus platform for its future refueling tanker over a Boeing 767 design. The award was announced Feb. 29, and Boeing’s protest was filed Mar. 11, followed by four supplemental filings.
Arianespace has pushed back the launch of the U.K. military communications satellite Skynet 5C on an Ariane 5ECA to the night of May 30‑31, to run unspecified launch vehicle checks. The launch, which will also orbit the Turksat 3A telecommunications satellite, had been scheduled for May 23.
Boeing’s plans to establish a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility in partnership with Air India and a third-party provider at India’s Nagpur Airport could see Boeing Business Jets and the P-8I Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft as clients. The Nagpur facility is pegged as a $100-million investment as part of an offset for Air India’s purchase of 63 airplanes. The Indian Air Force Communications Sqdn., which transports high-level officials, has purchased three 737-700 BBJs. Negotiations for eight P-8I patrol aircraft are underway as replacements for Ilyushin IL-38s.
Timothy J. Keating has been appointed Washington-based senior vice president-public policy for Boeing . He succeeds Tod R. Hullin, who plans to retire this year. Keating has been senior vice president-government relations for Honeywell and has been succeeded there by Sean O’Hollaren, who has been head of U.S. government relations and was deputy assistant to the President in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.
Mark Bullock, BAA’s Heathrow managing director, last week appeared to be the latest “victim” of the Terminal 5 mess, when he left the company following management restructuring. Meanwhile, U.K. airport operator BAA’s parent Ferrovial aims to substantially grow profits at Heathrow between now and 2012.
Steve Barton has been elected to the board of directors of the Irvine, Calif.-based Supplier Excellence Alliance . Current board member Frank Thompson was elected treasurer and a member of the executive committee, and William Alderman was named to the board of advisers. Barton is president/CEO of Esterline Kirkhill-TA Co., Esterline’s Engineered Materials Group. Thompson is group vice president-supply chain management for Parker Aerospace, and Alderman is founder/president of Alderman and Co. Capital.
Taiwanese airlines are poised for strong growth driven by mainland China in the next few years, even as they struggle now with a stagnant market and heavy losses that forced one carrier, Far Eastern Air Transport, to cease flying last week. Air links with China will probably be opened fully by about 2011, say analysts. That would be a great step forward from the current situation, in which direct flights between the mainland and Taiwan are almost prohibited.
New Zealand is buying five AgustaWestland A109s and a simulator to boost its helicopter training capacity. The rotorcraft will also be used for light utility roles, says New Zealand’s air force chief, Air Vice Marshal Graham Lintott. The helos, to be stationed at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base, Ohakea, are due to enter service in 2011.
Until now, Embraer’s executive aviation business has been a one-trick pony, but this year the Brazilian airframer is establishing itself as a broad-based presence in the business jet market.
The three senators who have flown on the space shuttle are urging colleagues to back legislation easing the deadline for retiring the vehicle. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and former Sens. Jake Garn (R-Utah) and John Glenn (D-Ohio) argue in a bylined Orlando Sentinel piece that they “suspect the President doesn’t know” his administration’s space policies could leave the International Space Station uncompleted and underutilized by the U.S. after 2010.
Boeing is abandoning its long-running effort to devise a successor to the 737, driven back to the drawing board by the lack of existing technology that can deliver the huge leap in performance airlines want for a next-generation single-aisle aircraft.
An American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics task force on the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) expects by early summer to have identified a list of satellite components that should be made exempt from the rigorous law. ITAR is found to have an especially heavy impact on second- and third-tier suppliers of such parts as lithium ion batteries, focal plane arrays, solar cells, visible imaging sensors, optical coatings and traveling wave tubes.
Northrop Grumman is finally under contract to re-engine at least one of USAF’s E-8C Joint Stars aircraft, almost seven years after Pratt & Whitney and Seven Q Seven first flew a Boeing 707 powered by JT8D-219s. Under contracts worth $300 million, Northrop will re-engine the E-8 testbed and begin certification flight testing by year-end. Replacement of the JT3Ds powering the 17 operational Joint Stars aircraft is scheduled to begin in late 2010 but is not yet funded.
In the first three months of 2008, Cessna Aircraft Co. has received orders for 235 Citation business jets and plans to deliver 121 to European customers this year, says Roger Whyte, senior vice president for sales and marketing. He says demand in Eastern Europe, Germany and Russia is “especially strong” and that orders outside of the U.S. accounted for more than 50% of the 773 logged in 2007. As a result, the company is expanding its presence at the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (Ebace) being held this week in Geneva.
Jim Zarvos (see photo) has been appointed senior vice president of St. Louis-based Midcoast Aviation and head of MRO and refurbishment activities at its Savannah (Ga.) Air Center. He will continue as head of satellite operations. Dave Smith has been promoted to vice president-MRO satellite operations.
Thales Alenia Space and Orbital Sciences Corp. will supply a new telecom satellite, Koreasat 6, for Korea Telecom. Thales Alenia will be responsible for integrating, testing and launching the spacecraft and ground segment, and will supply the payload. OSC will supply a Star 2 satellite bus for the 30-transponder Ku-band spacecraft.
China will push its new civil aircraft company to operate commercially, even though the manufacturer will surely need some kind of subsidy to get its proposed large airliner to market. The demand for a competitive, market-driven performance from Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (CACC) has come from the very top of the government. Premier Wen Jiabao, speaking at the inauguration of the company on May 11, made clear that the project would in no way be an engineers’ playground.
The European Aviation Safety Agency, Mexico, India and Saudi Arabia have certified the Hawker Beechcraft 750 business jet. FAA certification was issued in February.
Singapore Airlines would be pleased to consider reasonable offers for the 49% stake in “underperforming” Virgin Atlantic that it bought in 1999 for £600 million, says Chief Executive Chew Choon Seng. Analysts say the Southeast Asian carrier has never been able to exercise as much control over Virgin Atlantic as it would have liked.
A shortage of skilled labor is a growing concern at Airbus, and management worries it could undermine the company’s program execution and efforts to meet strong market demand. “We need to enhance the skills training, knowledge management and succession planning across all our teams,” says Airbus CEO Tom Enders.
Kizuna, Japan’s high-speed Internet satellite, has achieved another world record by establishing a direct 1.2-Gbps. connection with a 2.4-meter (7.87-ft.) ground antenna. The connection was made on May 5, by combining two 622-Mbps. links to create 1.2-Gbps. connections for both uplink and downlink between Kizuna—also known as Winds (wideband internetworking engineering test and demonstration satellite)—and a mobile vehicle-mounted antenna in Kagoshima. Winds is still in the midst of initial instrument checkout, which is scheduled to end late in June.
Air Arabia—the first and largest budget carrier in the Middle East and North Africa—has reported a first-quarter net profit of 78 million United Arab Emirates dirhams ($21.2 million), an 81% increase compared to the first quarter of 2007. Passenger traffic increased 31%, to 757,000 passengers, and the average load factor was up 2%, to 85%. “The uncertainty of high oil prices as well as increasing inflation rates puts an additional challenge on the air transport sector across the globe,” says CEO Adel Ali.
