Boeing says it has reached a tentative agreement on a three-year contract with the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 in St. Louis that provides workers with an average 9.5% wage increase. Features include a 17% increase in pension benefits to $70 per month for each year of service for employees retiring on or after July 1.
Airbus has begun construction on its Tianjin-based A319/A320 final assembly line. The goal is to produce aircraft by August 2008 and deliver to Chinese customers in 2009. Output should reach four aircraft a month in 2011. The Tianjin facility will be a mirror image of the single-aisle Airbus assembly line located in Hamburg. Airbus also is setting up a delivery center.
A loss of primary electrical power in the first, preproduction F-35A Joint Strike Fighter forced the pilot to cut short its 19th test flight. On May 3, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. test pilot Jeff Knowles was flying aircraft AA-1 at 38,000 ft. and Mach 0.78. He executed a planned, full-stick, 360-deg. roll and experienced an anomaly--a power loss--in the electrical system about halfway through the maneuver.
Three months into his term as defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov has changed the air force leadership. Gen.-Col. Alexander Zelin succeeds Gen. Vladimir Mikhailov. Lt. Gen. Igor Khvorov, who headed strategic aviation, was named first deputy air force chief, in charge of the headquarters. Lt. Gen. Igor Sadofief is now deputy air force chief in charge of aviation activities, with Lt. Gen. Vadim Volkovitsky the deputy in charge of air defense.
In an unprecedented commitment to Required Navigation Performance, Southwest Airlines will install RNP avionics and software on all 520 of its aircraft and use the procedures at the 63 airports it serves to cut fuel burn, emissions and noise. RNP is a form of area navigation (RNAV) that contains an aircraft in a tight corridor of airspace, most often with GPS guidance.The aircraft's flight management computer has to be able to monitor progress and alert pilots if containment is no longer possible.
The Airbus crisis is far from over despite the company's assertion that profitability will be restored as early as 2008, when A380 production finally ramps up.
Funding for the new engine for Russia's next-generation fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, is in big financial trouble, and will force the aircraft's first flight in 2009 to be undertaken with Al-31 engines now used on the Su-27. NPO Saturn, which led the engine development for the T-50 (also known as the PAK FA), warns the program still has no financial support from customers, slowing the effort.
As it pushes for a first flight in late summer, Boeing took delivery of all the large fuselage assemblies for the 787 at Payne Field and quickly transferred them next door to the new jet's final assembly line at the company's wide-body headquarters in Everett, Wash. All shipments are carried by converted 747-400 passenger aircraft whose fuselages have been enlarged to three times their normal diameter. Now called Dreamlifters, the aircraft also have a swing tail to allow straight-in loading of the big wing and fuselage sections.
Eumetsat's Metop A has been declared fully operational, giving Europe its first polar-orbiting weather and climate monitoring capability. Metop A will also provide data to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmos- pheric Administration for one of three daily polar orbits.
Southwest Airlines, which dropped service to San Francisco in 2001 because of high costs there, will return Aug. 29 with 18 daily departures on three routes. Operating initially with two gates, Southwest will offer eight nonstop round trips per day to San Diego, seven to Las Vegas and three to Chicago. The departures are the most ever for a Southwest service launch and represent the capacity of the two gates, but the carrier is expected to seek to expand at SFO as Virgin America prepares to begin operations there.
Embraer will unveil an Advanced Range version of its 170/175 twinjets at this week's Regional Airline Assn. convention in Memphis. Like the existing 175/195 ARs, the new variants will offer a 200-naut. mi. range increase. Embraer says it foresees FAA certification of the 195 in the second quarter, pending finalization of an initial U.S. airline order.
Spirit Aerosystems of Wichita, Kan., is branching out in airframe work. Besides fuselages for 737s and nose sections, pylons and nacelles for the 747, 767 and 777, it has picked up structural component orders for the Hawker 800XP and Airbus A320, A330, A340 and A380 since becoming independent of Boeing in 2005. Last week, Sikorsky handed Spirit its first helicopter airframe work. It will build the cockpit and cabin of the CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter for the U.S. Marine Corps as part of a supplier team including Aurora Flight Sciences, EDO Corp. and GKN Aerospace.
Capacity constraints and aircraft shortages appear to be the only factors slowing the growth of Emirates, but the airline is still developing into a huge threat to European and Asian airlines.
Israel has taken another significant step toward fielding a long-range surveillance and ballistic missile defense network of sensors, missiles and unmanned aircraft that it has been developing since 2000. Now, first photos of the initial flight last summer of Israel's secret, large-payload, unmanned aircraft--capable of carrying air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles for at least a day--have leaked.
Last week, Delta Air Lines and U.S. Helicopter began to offer Delta's customers helicopter shuttle service, starting at $159, between Gate 11 at JFK International airport in Terminal 3 and two heliports in Manhattan, one in midtown and one downtown at E. 34th Street and Wall Street, respectively. U.S. Helicopter plans to operate 27 8-min.-long flights daily, Monday through Friday, to Manhattan. It will also offer one round trip daily to Bridgeport, Conn. Passengers will be able to get a TSA security check at the heliports before arriving at the airport.
House lawmakers have voted to deny the MDA the $10 million it requested to study space-based missile defense interceptors in Fiscal 2008. MDA had planned to spend $300 million studying space-based interceptors over the next six years to help provide information for U.S. policy decisions about whether to develop and deploy them. The $10-million reduction was part of $764 million cut from MDA's $8.9-billion topline request by the House as part of its Fiscal 2008 defense authorization.
BAE Systems' $4.5-billion deal to purchase Florida-based Armor Holdings would position the global defense giant as the Pentagon's sixth-largest contractor while furthering its expansion into the land systems market by adding wheeled combat vehicles to its core tracked vehicle business. If the acquisition wins regulatory approval it would add more than $3 billion to BAE's U.S.
Air China is equipping 25 Boeing 737NG and 24 Airbus A320/A321 aircraft with Rockwell Collins WXR-2100 radar, designed to analyze weather hazards automatically on the flight path to avoid unexpected turbulence.
The private equity offer for Qantas is finally dead, with the bidders declaring on May 17 that they would not try to buy the carrier for a second time. The six-month process reached a climax May 4 when the bidding consortium narrowly failed to get the 50% of Qantas shares that it needed to keep the bid alive as it worked toward a final target of 70%. The possibility of a second takeover offer lingered until the consortium finally said it didn't think such an attempt would succeed.
T.R. (Randy) Pilling has been named general manager of BellAero Support Services for Bell Aerospace Services Inc., Bedford, Tex. He was director of acquisition logistics for the Defense Acquisition University, which is under the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense.
J. Garrett Martz (see photos) has been appointed president of the Westar Aerospace and Defense Group Inc., Huntsville, Ala. He succeeds Robert Topping, who has been appointed president/chief operating officer of Westar parent Qinetiq North America. Martz was chief operating officer of Westar. Randal M. Tieszen succeeds Martz and was executive vice president-aviation programs.
Ground controllers are trying to recover two orbital missions that have suffered serious problems, including one of the most complex military space technology missions ever flown.
A new round of upgrades is set to emerge soon for Bombardier's business jets and for its overseas training offering. Details of the plans are closely guarded, but company executives are signaling that the new field of very light jets is not for them, at least for now. "For us, this is not an area of focus," says Pierre Beaudoin, Bombardier president and chief operating officer.
Scientists using NASA's QuikSCAT (Quick Scatterometer) research satellite have discovered evidence of extensive snowmelt in western Antarctica as a result of rising temperatures. The spacecraft's scatterometer can map snowmelt across continental distances by distinguishing the radar returns from icy refrozen snow and fresh snow. Although the melting in January 2005 covered an area the size of California--the largest spotted from space in the past three decades--the satellite is now two years past its design life, and NASA has no near-term plan to replace it.
