EADS has acquired 10% of Russian aerospace and defense contractor Irkut, cementing an alliance begun two years ago with production of parts for the A320, built by EADS subsidiary Airbus, and joint marketing of Irkut affiliate Beriev's Be-200 amphibian.
CESSNA AIRCRAFT CO. RECEIVED FAA Type Inspection Authorization late last month for its Citation Mustang VLJ. The approval clears the way for Cessna to begin accumulating flight hours toward certification, which is scheduled for late this year. Two flight-test airplanes have made more than 290 flights. The fatigue-test airframe has completed two lifetimes equivalent to 30,000 hr. of flying, and Cessna plans to continue testing to five lifetimes (75,000 hr). The Mustang will have a cruise speed of 340 KTAS and operate at altitudes up to 41,000 ft.
The influx of new Airbus A319s is allowing EasyJet to add 14 routes. Moreover, operations at the U.K. cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Liverpool are being converted to A319s to replace Boeing 737s. EasyJet is moving to an all-Airbus inventory.
Northrop Grumman's Protonex group has been selected by the U.S. Air Force to design and develop a new lightweight fuel-cell system to power targeting, communications and sensor equipment used by airmen in combat. Working with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the team will work on a P2 fuel cell-based system that uses advanced batteries and an intelligent power manager.
Controllers have terminated the U.S.-French Topex/Poseidon ocean surface-topography mission after 13 years and almost 62,000 orbits, concluding that a stalled pitch reaction wheel cannot be restarted. Jointly developed by NASA and France's CNES, the satellite measured worldwide changes in the oceans' currents, tides and winds, using GPS navigation for the first time to pinpoint phenomena. It generated more than 2,100 scientific publications, and flew for three years in tandem with Jason, its follow-on mission.
Robert Song (see photo) has been named Shanghai-based Asia-Pacific regional director and area manager for Asia Pacific for the AirBridge Cargo division of the Volga Dnepr Group. He succeeds Peter Yap, who will be retiring Jan. 31. Song was an executive with Air New Zealand Cargo.
The U.S. Transportation Dept. is compressing 14 Mexico service applications into four competitions, each to add one airline to a market already served by two U.S. carriers. Increasing service in the markets to three carriers from two was negotiated last September.
Dassault Aviation sold a three-engine Falcon 900DX in China in 2005, a development that Dassault Falcon President John Rosanvallon says is a good sign of things to come. The 900DX is being purchased by Citic, the largest state-owned financial holding company in China. It will be delivered in the second half of 2007 and based in Beijing. Citic will be leasing a Falcon 2000 for use in the interim.
NATO's development of its future airborne ground-surveillance system may be in trouble and will certainly be delayed by at least a year because of lingering doubts about the program.
A few months later than the planned late-2005 delivery date, Korean Aerospace Industries has presented the first two production T-50 advanced jet trainers to the 52nd Sqdn. of the South Korean air force at Sacheon. Formally called the KTX-2 program, the single-engine, supersonic aircraft is powered by a General Electric F404-GE-102 engine and comes in two versions, the T-50A advanced trainer and the T-50B lead-in fighter/light attack aircraft. First flight for the T-50A was in August 2002 and an initial production contract for 25 aircraft was signed two years ago.
In the late 1950s, Brazil's Varig Airlines was competing successfully with Pan American on the Rio de Janeiro (RIO)-to-New York route--in spite of Varig's new Lockheed "Super-Constellation G" and its complicated, unreliable, turbo-compound engines.
Sixteen Energy Dept. mobile emergency field teams and two Radiological Control Centers (RADCCs) will be positioned within and around Cape Canaveral to ensure public safety in the unlikely event of an Atlas V launch accident with the nuclear-powered New Horizons spacecraft. During launch, set for Jan. 17, there will also be real-time coordination between NASA and the U.S. State Dept. should several foreign nations need immediate notification about any potential radioactive spacecraft debris hazard.
Roger Wolfe has become CEO and Shawn Vick president of Garrett/Piedmont Hawthorne/Associated, Tempe, Ariz. They succeed Frank Klaus, who has retired as president/CEO. Wolfe was vice president/general manager of Honeywell's Airframe Systems. Vick was a sales executive for Bombardier Aerospace.
Frost & Sullivan, a high-technology market analysis firm, expects huge growth in the use of fiber-optic technology on commercial aircraft as systems such as fly-by-light, optical computing, optoelectronics, smart structures, photonics and nano-optics develop. The lightweight technology is expected to save fuel. The benefits of fiber-optic versus conventional lighting in the passenger cabin go beyond just weight savings. Fiber-optic equipment is also cheaper to maintain and generates less heat, according to Frost & Sullivan.
The International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) is pushing for further improvements in airline safety, as a series of accidents in 2005 highlights concerns over the level of performance in Africa and South America.
A new European weather satellite promises to ensure the continuity and reliability of high-quality imagery data necessary for tracking tropical storms and other severe weather phenomena.
The FAA has granted type certification to the Engine Alliance GP7200 turbofan that will power the Airbus A380 transports. The engine, built by a General Electric and Pratt & Whitney joint venture, was initially certified at 76,500 lb. and could grow to 81,500 lb. During testing, thrust levels reached 94,000 lb., according to the Engine Alliance. Emirates, the largest single A380 customer, has opted for the powerplant, which will be fielded after Singapore International Airlines puts its Rolls-Royce Trent 900-powered A380s into service.
The U.S. and Europe soon are expected to decide whether to embrace an upgraded Patriot interceptor for their Medium Extended Air Defense System, marking one of several important events ahead this year for naval-, ground- and space-based missile defense projects.
The Bush administration's decision to drop its funding request for further research on Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) technology is incredibly short-sighted (AW&ST Oct. 31, 2005, p. 33).
David Calvert-Jones has been named CEO of Helinet Aviation Services of Los Angeles. He was senior vice president-corporate strategy. Calvert-Jones succeeds company founder Alan Purwin, who will oversee business development.
With diverse businesses that include aircraft landing gear, wheels and brakes, nacelles and sensors, aftermarket services and defense and space products, Goodrich Corp. enjoyed a nice run on Wall Street during the first nine months of 2005. But its stock took a dive last October after the company warned that 2006 earnings would be negatively impacted by "headwinds" from pension expenses, currency exchange rates and stock-based employee compensation.
Russia has set a fare of $21.8 million for NASA astronauts to ride a Soyuz vehicle to the International Space Station. Detailed long-term arrangements remain to be negotiated, but the Russian Federal Space Agency has committed to the ticket price through 2011. The price tag emerged in negotiations over how ISS transportation will be handled now that the original Soyuz barter deal has expired, and the U.S. Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 (INA) has been amended to allow NASA to buy station services from Russia.
The NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory New Horizons Pluto mission spacecraft is inspected at the Kennedy Space Center by Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute. The black simulated Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator will be replaced by the actual plutonium-fueled system just before launch. A Lockheed Martin Atlas V with a Boeing upper stage will propel the craft at a record Earth escape speed of 10.07 mi./sec. (see p. 46). AW&ST photo by Carleton Bailie.
Air Canada has expanded its Simplified Fares structure now available in Canada and the U.S. to include flights to London Heathrow and Manchester. Additional European destinations are to be added in the near future. The web-based system allows the passenger to choose from four fare categories, with prices dependent on desired flexibility in different categories including seat choice, advance booking, stopovers and minimum stay requirement.
