Amen to Pierre Sparaco’s European Perspective “Armistice Time” (AW&ST Sept. 17, p. 93) on the drawn-out World Trade Organization battle between the U.S. and European Union over subsidies/state aid. Each is as bad as the other, should recognize the fact and get on with building aircraft.
The French government is trimming modernization funding in a flat 2008 budget request that serves as little more than a bridge to the next multi-year military spending program now under development. The top-line €47.5 billion ($67 billion) in defense budget authority (€48.1 billion in budget outlays), represents a €200-million reduction from the 2007 budget plan. Equipment spending is falling to €15.1 billion from €15.7 billion.
Latin America’s 6.6% projected growth rate will be second only to China for the world’s commercial aviation traffic in the coming two decades, according to Boeing.
The German defense ministry has decided on its special mission wing replacement plan to replace Challenger 601s being phased out starting in 2010. The fleet purchase will involve two Airbus A319 ACJ corporate jets, to be delivered in 2010, and four Bombardier Global 5000s, which are to be handed over in 2011. The government has selected Lufthansa Technik to serve as prime contractor, to provide the cabin fitting for the 48-seat ACJ, and to supply long-term support. The Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services joint venture in Berlin will support the Global 5000s.
Beijing Capital International Airport has begun test operations with its new third runway, using it at the same time as the other two. Full operation of the runway, to begin at the end of this month, will lift airport capacity to 105-115 movements an hour from the current 80. A new terminal is due for completion in February, to handle traffic for next year’s Olympic Games and is already working far beyond designed capacity of its current facilities.
Acting Pentagon acquisition chief John Young says he wants more prototyping in Defense Dept. programs before the services select a winning contractor. In a Sept. 19 memo, he directs the services to formulate acquisition strategies that include “technically mature prototyping” at least through the beginning of system design and development (SDD). The services will “formulate all pending and future programs with acquisition strategies and funding that provide for two or more competing teams producing prototypes” into the SDD phase.
Jean-Lin Fournereaux, chairman/CEO of Snecma Services, is to be named chairman/CEO of Sagem Defense Securite, which is another subsidiary of Paris-based Safran. He will succeed Jean-Paul Herteman. Fournereaux will be followed by Denis Vercherin, who has been senior vice president of Hispano-Suiza.
Continental Airlines is increasing operations at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport under a $16-million incentive package from the State of Ohio. New services this year in the first phase are providing a 10% capacity increase over 2006. Early next year, 27 new nonstop flights to 12 new destinations will increase departures to 300 a day from 242 this June. Seasonal service between Cleveland and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport begins May 22.
Darrell Andregg (see photo) has been named director of engineering for the International Communications Group Inc. , Newport News, Va. He was director of firmware development at Axxcelera Broadband Wireless.
USAF Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley says he plans to procure a number of Joint Cargo Aircraft equipped with a 30mm. gun for use by the Air Force Special Operations Command. This would be the same weapon now replacing 20 and 40mm. guns already on AC-130s. This requirement could add to the number of JCAs being purchased by USAF. Raytheon protested the Pentagon selection of the L-3/Alenia/Boeing C-27J and GAO has yet to rule on the protest.
Saab AB’s deputy chief executive, Ingemar Andersson, was fired last week by CEO Ake Svensson. “Ingemar and I have concluded that our collaboration is not functioning satisfactorily,” said Svensson.
Northrop Grumman has demonstrated an advanced targeting data link for the U.S. Air Force using the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (Darpa’s) Quint Network Technology. QNT is associated with the Navy and the Air Force’s Global Cyberspace Integration Center. The data link was installed on a Litening AT targeting system to provide encrypted, two-way, airborne transmission of streaming video and metadata-tagged still imagery at full sensor resolution.
Airbus will make key A350XWB supplier and design decisions in the coming weeks, with the goal of signing 70% of its main partners for the aircraft by year-end. With high-speed wind-tunnel tests only starting, Airbus is still working on the aerodynamic profiling of the wing. A350 chief engineer Gordon McConnell says trials on several different winglet designs are due soon, and that a final decision regarding the configuration is expected in the coming months.
And on the other side of the pond, BAE Systems completed first tests of Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System rockets, fired from a U.S. Marine Corps AH-1 Cobra helicopter. Two of the guided, 2.75-in. rockets were launched. The first was guided to its target by a ground-based laser designator. The pilot guided the second rocket using laser designation equipment on board the helicopter. The tests, company officials say, proved the small weapon can acquire, track and hit a laser-designated target.
The decision by the Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Assn. to proceed with the disputed seniority list, comprising names of veteran US Airways and ex-America West pilots, will not be welcomed by a segment of the ALPA unit at US Airways. The council has ruled that “there was no basis to set aside” the arbitration decision (AW&ST June 11, p. 42). The pilots, known as the East group, fought hard to overturn the award, which they believe was unfair to many first officers whose names they claim were stapled to the bottom of the list.
Germany will launch a trial project that links takeoff and landing charges to NOx and CO2 emissions at Munich and Frankfurt airports beginning Jan. 1, 2008, thereby covering 50% of Germany’s air traffic. The program will be reviewed in a year to determine a future course of action. German transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee says the measure will encourage the introduction of more jets with more fuel efficient, clean-burning engines.
European Space Agency engineers are open to collaboration with NASA and other agencies on a Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, but are unsure about rigging the planned ExoMars rover with a sample cache for later return to Earth. “The idea is an excellent one,” says Piero Messina of ESA’s exploration program office in Paris. But “it all depends on what this caching means in terms of mass impact on the mission configuration,” which is not yet clear.
British, French and Swedish partners in a nascent multinational missile program this month will begin determining the impact of Stockholm’s decision to zero-fund its portion of the project. MBDA and Saab Bofors Dynamics are leading the Multi-Role Combat Missile (MRCM) program, which is aimed at developing families of weapons to address a broad range of emerging requirements from their national customers.
Actor Cliff Robertson has been named to receive the 2007 Wesley L. McDonald Elder Statesman of Aviation Award from the National Aeronautic Assn . The award honors Americans who have made contributions of value to aeronautics and is named after NAA’s past chairman, Adm. Wesley L. McDonald. Robertson, a longtime soaring fan, is a member of the Experimental Aircraft Assn. President’s Council and was founding chairman of the EAA Young Eagles Program.
Growing awareness of the threat to Earth posed by even relatively small asteroids is spurring some early work on ways to keep them from hitting Earth. William Ailor, director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corp., says the chance of another event the size of the one that leveled a Siberian forest in 1908 with an airburst equal to 10-15 megatons of high explosive is about one in 10 in any given century. That blast, which flattened more than 2,000 sq. km.
Pratt & Whitney has received its first formal production contract for F135 engines for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The low-rate initial order of $69.3 million supports powerplants for the first two conventional takeoff and landing F-35s.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has denied Raytheon’s protest of the U.S. Army and Air Force’s decision to award the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program to the C-27J team of L-3 Communications, Alenia North America and Boeing. Raytheon was teamed with EADS North America to offer the CASA C-295 for JCA, which will replace the Army’s aging C-23 Sherpa fleet and supplement USAF’s C-130s.
Is a first officer with only 250 hr. total training time ready, and safe, to fly revenue passengers? The issue is one of several in the current industry debate about the Multi-crew Pilot (MPL) License, a program that the International Civil Aviation Organization is aiming to make the global standard for airline pilot training in 2010.
Flushed with the success of its revamped premium economy offering on the Airbus A380, Virgin Atlantic will reconfigure the same class on its fleet of Boeing 747s. The airline will double the number of premium economy seats it offers on the 747 to 64 from 32. Virgin Atlantic’s London Heathrow-based 747s will be equipped with the new premium economy configuration by the end of the year.
Eurocopter is stealing a page from its fixed-wing business aviation colleagues, and has teamed with a renowned design house to tailor its EC135 to the high-end commercial buyer. Discussions between Eurocopter and design firm Hermes go back two years. But rather than focus merely on the look and feel of the rotorcraft, to make a real market impact the two decided the helicopter itself would have to change, says Dominique Orbec, Eurocopter vice president for marketing.
