SES Astra will issue a request for proposals in 2008-09 for two large telecom spacecraft to replace four older Astra 2 units at Astra’s 28.2 deg. E. orbital position.
India’s civil aviation ministry has OK’d the establishment of a new international airport at Jewar, east of New Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Government approval for the Taj International Airport is scheduled as early as the end of this month. The airport is projected to be ready by 2010 and is estimated to cost about $1 billion to construct. In addition to Jewar, two other airports are being built in Bangalore and Hyderabad in southern India.
Chinese moves to control the rapid airline growth that’s taxing its infrastructure will probably boost demand for small to medium wide-body aircraft such as the A330 and 787 at the expense of narrowbodies, manufacturers say. Airbus sees the clampdown as one of a series of developments in Asia that will stimulate sales of the A330. Its brisk sales over the past year or so have surprised even Airbus.
Dragonair, a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways, will join the Oneworld airline alliance on Nov. 1. The carrier, which specializes in linking Hong Kong with mainland China, will introduce 12 mostly secondary Chinese cities to the Oneworld schedule. Customers of other alliances’ airlines can reach secondary Chinese cities only on Chinese mainland airlines.
Qantas says it is stopping its flight trial over the city of Cairns on Sept. 10 due to competing environmental issues. “After regular consultation with the Cairns Airport Environment Committee, we decided that although the RNP technology used for this trial reduces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions, the benefits do not outweigh the significant noise impact on residents,” says Qantas Chief Risk Officer Rob Kella.
Four of China’s Sukhoi Su-27 fighters reportedly have been destroyed or badly damaged in the past six months, leaving 31 in service. Of the 46 Su-27s bought in the early 1990s, 15 have been lost in crashes and only 16 are combat-ready at any time. The inexperience or poor training of pilots, who receive only 10 flight hours per month, is cited.
Eutelsat and ViaSat are partnering to offer two-way consumer broadband satellite service in Germany. The service, called Tooway, will use Ka-band capacity on Eutelsat’s Hot Bird 6 satellite and Ku-band capacity on Eurobird 3, using equipment and a Docsis platform provided by ViaSat. It will be expanded across Europe in 2010 with a dedicated Ka-band satellite for which funding was recently approved. The two companies already collaborate on business aviation inflight communications.
Robert Wall (Stockholm), Joris Janssen Lok (Linkoping, Sweden)
Despite rumblings of a significant defense budget cut this year, Sweden will be able to sidestep a large reduction for now. However, it is likely to see a critical review of future military plans next year as a series of important studies on threats and force levels draw to a close.
Having shed its convoluted management structure, EADS must now demonstrate it really can operate like a smoothly running company. Early indications are that’s not going to happen.
Hot-spot records collected from space show Greece suffered more wildfires in August than other European nations did during the past decade. This medium-resolution imaging spectrometer view collected Aug. 27 from the European Space Agency’s Envisat spacecraft shows the results, with vast stretches of the Peloponnesian Peninsula blackened by fires that killed at least 63 people. Dry winds and record heat this year created classic wildfire conditions in Greece and southern Italy.
NASA plans to seek expert advice in structuring an anonymous survey of astronauts and flight surgeons that may finally get at the truth behind charges astronauts have been “intoxicated” on at least two occasions when they showed up for flight. Capitol Hill testimony on the issue doesn’t resolve conflicting accounts of the alcohol abuse charge. However, it does highlight the broader issues of poor oversight of astronaut health at Johnson Space Center uncovered by a panel of outside flight surgeons and mental health experts.
EADS has flown the military version of its Hellas (helicopter laser radar) obstacle avoidance system planned for installation in the NH90 helicopter. The NH90 derivative of the system, called MilOWS, or Military Obstacle Warning System, has undergone only initial trials but more are planned during the next two months. In the first round, the test helo performed low-level flights and bank angles up to 45 deg., according to EADS.
Boeing has received $122 million as part of the Pentagon’s supplemental budget for an additional EA-18G low-rate initial production (LRIP) airborne electronic attack kit. This adds to a prior fixed-price order for eight EA-18Gs bought in the first LRIP lot.
Newcastle International Airport in England has christened its 45-meter-high (148-ft.) ATC tower as the Emirates Tower because it is being sponsored by the Dubai-based airline, which launched long-haul service to Dubai from Newcastle on Sept. 1.
Jim Schwendinger, who has been a principal of Deloitte Consulting, has been appointed vice chairman of New York-based Deloitte’s aerospace and defense practice.
U.K. broadband startup Avanti will acquire three spacecraft over the next six months to supplement a single unit already on order. One of the units, to be launched by 2010-12, would be used to expand service to Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Avanti’s first spacecraft is to be orbited in early 2009.
An Airbus A380 touring Asia suffered the aircraft’s first public incident as it was being readied for a demonstration flight at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. The aircraft was taxiing when the left wingtip fence struck a maintenance hangar. Airline officials blamed the incident on a lack of familiarity with the aircraft’s size on the part of the crew at the time; the infrastructure at the airport is designed for the A380. A Thai Airways International captain was at the controls, with airline employees—aided by Airbus personnel—involved in ground handling.
Mass retirement is looming for the world’s fleet of aging freighters, especially Boeing 747-200s. Boeing says that 40% of the 320 747 freighters in service are at least 25 years old but keep flying because strong demand for new passenger jets and delays in delivery of Airbus A380s have suppressed the supply of replacement airplanes.
MacAulay-Brown, Timco Aviation Services and Kellstrom Defense Aerospace have teamed to offer a center wing box rehabilitation package for the Lockheed C-130. Existing wings will ground the airplane at 38,000 equivalent baseline hours but the reworked wing would extend service life another 35,000 hr. Team members contend their solution offers a two-to-one return on investment compared with buying a new wing based on previous work accomplished on C-130As.
Regarding the article entitled “Help Wanted” (Aug. 20/27, p. 80), I’m tired of hearing CEOs whine about labor shortages; they are reaping what they have sown. Through massive downsizing, outsourcing and offshoring, they have destroyed the labor supply for this generation and the next. Fixing the problem will not be quick, but the steps are clear:
Daniel Gillian has been named Boeing’s New Delhi-based director of enterprise sourcing for India. He was program manager for avionics for critical platforms for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in St. Louis.
Thomas A. Kennedy (see photo) has been named vice president of the Raytheon Co.’s El Segundo, Calif.-based Tactical Airborne Systems. He was vice president of the SAS Mission Systems Integration organization.
Those in the global warming debate who believe that man is responsible will always cite “consensus” as the rationale for their argument, while the contrarians will cite hard science and data. The letter of Aug. 6 is no different. The writer uses his “consensus” of opinion as grounds to call the author of a letter in the July 23 issue a “fool,” though the earlier writer cited hard numbers in his analysis.
