Although the U.S. has not altered its public position since China’s successful anti-satellite (Asat) test in January, the government has been quietly posturing to deal with the problem, including the formation of strategies in the Pentagon and State Dept. and a funding plan to procure needed technologies.
International Launch Services hopes to have its Proton launch vehicle back in operation before the end of the year, following the release of Russian government findings into a Sept. 6 accident that sidelined the heavy lifter.
By any measure—performance, economics, passenger suffering—the U.S. air traffic management system endured horrid delays this summer. Looking beyond weather and other uncontrollable factors, everybody in the business has a theory of why it happened. Airlines say business jets clogged the system’s arteries. Business and general aviation, corroborated by the FAA, counter that airlines scheduled too many flights. Air traffic controllers complain that towers, Tracons and en-route centers were understaffed.
The European Union is putting a big chunk of its next round of aeronautics research funding into technologies aimed at improving aviation’s environmental performance. The first call for research ideas under the EU’s latest framework program (No. 7) elicited 196 proposals—a budget demand of €840 million ($1.18 billion). But with only €217 million available at this time, the European Commission had to whittle down options to 36 projects, ranging from propulsion efforts to avionics.
SR Technics, feeling the lure of Asia, is reviewing a wide range of potential businesses and locations as it seeks to get closer to customers in the booming region. Although the Swiss company reckons it is competing well from its Zurich base, the attraction of having a bigger presence in Asia has prompted it to look into doing more work locally, going well beyond the limited operations it now has in the region.
The U.S. Army’s top combat commander in Europe, who helped manage the 2003 lightning-like invasion of Iraq, says he hopes to turn around a decision to cut warfighting capabilities stationed in Germany and Italy. Gen. David McKiernan says the current plan is to reduce the force to two combat brigades from four (173rd Airborne, 2nd Cavalry, 2nd Brigade/1st Infantry Div. and 4th Brigade/1st Armored Div.). Without increasing the total in Europe, he’s pushing an initiative to keep these forces in Europe because they are on regular rotations to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Transportation Security Administration is spending nearly $4 million on hand-held bottle scanners, while searching for new technologies that could provide a quicker way to screen air travelers for explosives concealed in liquids. But TSA officials concede that won’t be happening any time soon. Such a silver-bullet technology “does not exist today,” says TSA Administrator Edmund (Kip) Hawley. He adds, “There may never be a silver bullet. It’s certainly not going to be here for the next 18-month [TSA] planning cycle.”
Michel Dechelotte (see photo) has been appointed vice president-finance and Thierry Pistre (see photo) vice president-value creation and processes improvement for France-based Messier-Dowty. Dechelotte succeeds Georges de Chaisemartin. Joel Berkoukchi has become head of the Airbus and European programs unit and Luigi Mattia of the Boeing and North American programs unit. Senior Vice President Simon Luxmoore also will now oversee customer services worldwide.
Mike Marie has become sales manager for the Midwest U.S., Northeast U.S. and Eastern Canada for DAC International , Austin, Tex. He held a similar position with Ryan International and Avidyne.
The Concorde lives—at least in the hearts and minds of most Europeans. Fondness for the Franco-British supersonic transport seems to intensify over the years, an indication that the sleek-shaped, so-called neo-Gothic slender-winged prestigious transport may have left the skies, but has not exited the scene.
Stephane Mondoloni, who is chief scientist of Washington-based CSSI Inc., has been selected winner of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Best Paper from the 2006 Aircraft Technology Integration and Operations Conference. Mondoloni’s paper, “A Multiple-Scale Model of Wind-Prediction Uncertainty and Application to Trajectory Prediction,” explores the errors someone calculating airplane trajectories might experience because of unpredictable winds.
Brent Wright has been appointed platform business manager for military transparencies for PPG Industries , Sylmar, Calif. He succeeds Chuck Seagle, who has retired. Wright was vice president-military programs for the PPG subsidiary Sierracin/Sylmar Corp.
Italian space industry leaders warn they may not be able to sustain vital know-how if the European Space Agency fails to OK new initiatives to replace space transportation and infrastructure programs now coming to an end. The warning, like one made earlier by French and German executives, is particularly acute at Thales Alenia Space (TAS) Infrastructure and Transport Div. TAS has now lost half of the 500 people and €200 million ($282 million) in annual sales generated in the heyday of International Space Station construction earlier this decade.
Finnair is managing to keep unit cost decreases ahead of unit revenue declines. The latter, the carrier says, fell 6.5% between July and September as capacity was expanded on long-haul routes and flights to southern Europe. For the first nine months, load factor slipped two percentage points, largely because of the strong capacity increase on which the carrier has embarked. On the North American routes, however, a slight capacity decrease helped spur a jump in load factor, which reached 93%. Load factors were down in Finnair’s Asian and European networks.
NASA hopes that by watching the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle’s weight throughout the design process, leftover mass margin can be used to accommodate new systems and capabilities, as was done during the Apollo program. By the time of the last three Apollo lunar missions, “they were able to turn what used to be management reserve into capability,” says Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley.
The technical mismatch between the U.S. and its allies in Europe “is getting even wider because of investment strategies,” McKiernan says. “It’s not weapon systems and platforms. It’s command and control, communications and computer networking. We’ve got to work on common situational awareness.” The threat to Europe from radical fundamentalist Muslims “involves all of the coalition partners.” They are transnational, networked, well-financed, adaptive and have no recruiting or retention problems. Another fear is cyber attack.
Pratt & Whitney is starting detailed design work on the first production version of its geared turbofan family after a pivotal victory in the engine selection competition for Mitsubishi’s new regional jet project.
G. Scott Hubbard has become a consulting professor appointment in the Stanford University Aeronautics and Astronautics Dept. He has been a visiting scholar in the Electrical Engineering Dept. and was director of the nearby NASA Ames Research Center.
Air Europa is finalizing the purchase of six Embraer 195 regional jets that would bring the total backlog for the 170/190 family to 426 aircraft and the value of the backlog to $17.4 billion. Through the third quarter, the backlog already stood at $17.2 billion. Embraer says it is also on track to meet its full-year delivery target of 165-170 aircraft. One sign of progress in the recovery from manufacturing delays on the 170/190 family is that third-quarter deliveries reached 38 commercial aircraft per month.
When Airbus launched the A380—out of its A3XX design studies—on Dec. 19, 2000, it knew that hard work lay ahead, but nobody anticipated the extent of the difficulties. With lead-customer Singapore Airlines to receive the first A380 on Oct. 15, Airbus employees and its suppliers reach a critical celebratory milestone that at many points seemed out of reach. Along the way, they have faced a seemingly unrelenting string of technical and business hurdles.
Engine overhaul shop MTU Maintenance Zhuhai, already making money only four years after opening in southern China, is likely to expand within three years and handsomely boost profits. The 50-50 joint venture between Germany’s MTU Aero Engines GmbH. and China Southern Airlines Co. Ltd. needs very little new equipment to lift its capacity from 200-220 engine shop visits a year to 300, and can stretch output further to 350 with more workers, says President and CEO Walter Strakosch.
I take exception to Dale Gibby’s letter concerning the complexity and vulnerability of tiltrotors (AW&ST Sept. 24, p. 12). I am biased in favor of tiltrotor technology. I have a few hundred hours in tiltrotors and tandem-rotor helicopters. Addressing the “intractable fundamental flaws” that were of such concern:
Airbus and Boeing are now firmly on track to set new order-intake records by year-end, defying expectations that after several banner years 2007, would see a return to more historic norms. A flurry of recent firm commitments virtually assures Airbus will top the 1,111-order intake it logged in 2005. Through September, the aircraft maker had booked 854 orders, and almost 200 more have been received since then.
