The first export order of Dassault Aviation Rafale fighters is in its final stages. Morocco is the expected buyer. French industry officials note that all the required technical and pricing information has been provided, and finalizing the deal is up to the king of Morocco. What's unclear is when the monarch will give the green light.
Southwest Airlines' unit costs increased 0.23 cents year-over-year to 8.92 cents per available seat mile during the first quarter of 2007, and all but one hundredth of a cent of the hike was divided equally between fuel and maintenance. Fuel cost growth amounted to 4.8% while the maintenance increase was 23.4%, and the latter will continue for a while, the carrier says in a quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Test footage from China's air systems development center is providing valuable insight into the air force's air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons programs. The imagery includes drop-tests and live firing of China's PL-12 active radar-guided air-to-air missile from a J-11B, China's domestically produced version of the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker. Also shown were two variants of the KD-88 tactical air-to-surface missile, and a test-firing of what could well be a YJ-91, a Chinese-manufactured adaptation of the Russian Kh-31 (AS-17 Krypton).
The Airbus A330 order book is growing. India's Jet Airways has taken delivery of its first A330-200. The international airline in October 2005 ordered 10 -200s, which it plans to operate on regional and long-haul flights. The airline already operates A340s and two leased A330s. Fly Asia Xpress, which plans to operate long-haul budget services under the brand of Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia, has ordered 10 A330-300s and holds options on five, and is hoping to operate 25 aircraft within five years. Deliveries are due to begin in September 2008.
Aurora Flight Sciences has won a contract from the U.S. Navy to develop a low-cost, degradable taggant that can be dispersed over a wide area by an unmanned aircraft. Taggants are materials that, for example, can use chemical and physical markers to detect explosives, in this case improvised explosive devices (IED). The team will have to develop the taggant and a design for a sensor system that can detect changes in the taggant distribution area, quickly and accurately.
Australia has signed contracts worth $2.4 billion for 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets and support systems. Further support contracts and others covering weapons will be signed later this year. The country has budgeted $5 billion for all expenses in owning and operating the aircraft over 10 years as replacements for its larger and longer-range F-111 strike bombers. They are due to be retired in 2010 as the Super Hornets become operational.
It's no surprise that U.S. carriers Delta, Hawaiian and US Airways have already started to court the U.S. Transportation Dept. to secure authority to serve China next year because the potential for traffic growth in that country far surpasses that of any other country in Asia.
Sikorsky has been awarded a $73.7-million contract for repair, overhaul and modification of the main rotor heads and gearboxes and other components on CH-53E, MH-53E and CH-53D heavy-lift helicopters.
Congressional Democrats who beat back last year's Transportation Dept. attempt to relax foreign-ownership rules for airlines are leery of the newly signed first-stage open-skies agreement with the European Union. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, says the committee will keep tabs on whether the pact results in "authorizing foreign control that would not have been authorized under prior policies," and whether negotiations toward a second-stage deal permit increased foreign control.
With just two months to go before rollout, the first Boeing 787 assemblies are beginning to arrive at Everett, Wash., already fitted with internal equipment and ready to be "snapped together" to create the first of the mid-sized transports. The aircraft will not be a prototype, but a production unit that will be delivered to a customer after test flying and will, Boeing says, fully meet the contract specification.
As the ground war in Iraq continues, the U.S. Air Force's plan to look beyond counter-insurgencies toward a future bomber may be a hard sell in Washington. A Pentagon and Capitol Hill--distracted with the path ahead in Iraq--may deem discussion of a new bomber to thwart adversaries in North Korea or possibly China, premature. USAF is beginning to make its case for the system. Against this political backdrop, however, the service is walking another fine line: explaining why it is seemingly playing it safe on the bomber's requirements.
PIPER AIRCRAFT INC. is entering the wind-tunnel testing phase in its development of the PiperJet. The tests will include an analysis of a natural laminar flow wing designed for the airplane. Piper's first foray into the jet market, the six-passenger PiperJet, would feature a conventional aluminum alloy airframe and a single Williams FJ44-3AP engine. Although the powerplant is rated at 3,000 lb. thrust at sea level, it would be de-rated to 2,400 lb. thrust for the PiperJet application. The company says the jet would cost about $2.1 million (2006 dollars).
A June 8 space shuttle launch target for Atlantis on the STS-117 mission to the International Space Station is becoming increasingly fragile, as rollout of the vehicle to Launch Complex 39A has slipped a week to about May 12. NASA and United Space Alliance managers had hoped that an Atlantis main engine changeout and repair of hail damage to its external tank would allow rollout by about May 6. But they have added an extra week for work yet to be done in the Kennedy Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).
Thales Alenia Space will build a new communications satellite, Thor 6, for high-power, direct-to-home TV applications under a new contract from Telenor. The 36-transponder K u-band spacecraft, to enter service in mid-2009, will serve the Nordic countries, and Central and Eastern Europe. It was the first telecom satellite award for the manufacturer since it was taken over by Thales.
Boeing has begun testing the AC-130U gunship, armed with new 30-mm. cannon, at Hurlburt Field, Fla. The company is modifying four aircraft for the USAF Special Operations Command with the longer-barrel weapons that offer increased stand-off range, improved first-shot accuracy, and a suite of electronic and infrared countermeasures for enhanced self-protection. The 30-mm. weapons will replace the 40-mm. and 25-mm. cannon.
Andre Wall (see photo) has been appointed chief operating officer for Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America for Zurich-based Jet Aviation. He was president/CEO of MTU Maintenance of Berlin.
Bombardier is starting to evaluate the latest data on potential engine offerings for the CSeries narrowbody the Canadian aircraft maker wants to put in service in 2013. Although taken off the front burner last year, company officials have continued to talk to suppliers and also significantly altered the design of the two aircraft, the C110 and C130, that comprise the CSeries family.
EADS CASA has received a follow-on order from Lockheed Martin for five HC-235A multimission aircraft, which are part of the U.S. Coast Guard Deepwater program. Deliveries are to be completed by the end of 2008. The total order for the twin-turboprops for Deepwater now stands at eight, with up to 28 more orders possible.
Hailed as the world's largest building when it opened May 1, 1967, Boeing's Everett factory is about to accommodate a fourth final assembly line under its 98.3-acre roof. Major sections for the 787 have been arriving for weeks but the company will officially celebrate the start of final assembly in a May 21 ceremony.
Scientists and engineers on the 50-person team operating the New Horizons planetary probe will start planning for its July 2015 arrival at Pluto this year, incorporating lessons and scientific results from the nuclear-powered spacecraft's Feb. 28 flyby of Jupiter.
When I read "The Vanishing Aerospace Engineer" (AW&ST Feb. 5, p. 44) I immediately though of Yogi Berra's classic "It's deja vu all over again." When I graduated from high school in 1949 I was told that becoming an engineer was a fool thing to do because that fall engineers were still walking the streets looking for a job. Since 1953, I have had at least six positions and excellent experiences working on everything from locomotives to the space shuttle SRBs.
Existing equipment can play a role in screening air cargo for explosives, but the jury is still out on whether the machines will be fast enough to scan most or all of passenger jet cargo.
Eight premier aerospace companies, the European Union and the European Space Agency are collaborating in a management fiasco that could give commercial space a black eye. The object of everyone's attention is the Galileo satellite navigation system, and "collaborating" might not be the right word for what's going on, implying as it does the idea of working jointly to achieve a common purpose. The problem is: Nothing is being done jointly, and purposes are not common.
President Vladimir Putin cleared creation of AirUnion airline, combining five smaller carriers into a single operator and establishing what could be the third largest in the Russian air transport market after Aeroflot and S7 Airlines. At least 51% of AirUnion will be controlled by private shareholders, with the rest belonging to the government. Currently, all five airlines operate as an alliance led by Krasnoyarsk-based Krasair Airlines; AirUnion should be established by November.
Growing customer demand for unique identification and the ability to trace parts has prompted the U.K.'s Pryor Marking Technology to begin a dot-matrix part-marking service that the company claims is less susceptible to industrial damage than bar coding. Depending on the application, Pryor uses lasers, electrochemical etching or data pinging machines to imprint parts with dot-matrix patterns and serial numbers. Typical applications include hot-section parts in gas turbine engines, such as turbine blades (see photo).
