The Bombardier Global Express business jet was certified by the European Joint Aviation Authorities on May 7. The approval was issued under JAR Part 25, through Change 14. Bombardier reports having 80 orders for the twin-engine jet. Transport Canada and the FAA certified the airplane in 1998.
Bombardier Inc. clearly is reaping the benefits of heavy investments in its aerospace business in the last 10 years, with an aerospace backlog that now exceeds $16 billion and is growing. J.P. Morgan analyst Don C. MacDougall is looking for earnings growth of about 30% in fiscal 2000, driven by a combination of solid business fundamentals and new aerospace products. Revenue growth in that segment is expected to offset any weakness in the company's recreational products operation.
Enhancements planned for the U.S. Army's Chinook helicopter fleet should eliminate operational deficiencies that cropped up during the gulf war and provide the aircraft with a fivefold range and capability improvement over current CH-47Ds.
Russia considers Yugoslavia an ally and NATO an expansionist threat. China fears NATO's intervention in the Balkans prefigures U.S. meddling in a future conflict between China and Taiwan, a long simmering issue currently fueled by a Chinese missile buildup against Taiwan and U.S. suggestions that it will counter the buildup by deploying theater missile defenses (TMD) in Taiwan or Japan. National security experts say the souring of America's relations with both powers gets worse the longer the war continues, threatening years of White House efforts to:
The Aviation Safety Alliance has launched a Web site aimed at supporting its main goal of educating the public and the news media about how the aviation industry pursues and preserves safety gains. Set up last year, the alliance includes the Air Transport Assn. and major airframe, engine and component manufacturers. The Web site at http://www.aviationsafetyalliance.org is a good first step toward educating visitors, offering them fundamental information on how aircraft fly and animated graphics showing how components on transports work.
Almost from the hour NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, the alliance has been rebuked and scorned for a series of strategic blunders, among them confusing moral crusades with national security interests (see p. 32). President Clinton addressed that criticism directly in a speech last week.
Flight Safety Services Corp. has won a $224-million contract to provide one weapon system trainer and FY2000-10 operation and maintenance in support of the Aircrew Training System for the U.S. Air Force C-5 transport aircraft.
At its ministerial summit last week, the European Space Agency approved a range of programs intended to reinforce Europe's lead role in commercial launchers and position its industry to compete in new areas like satellite navigation. However, the ministers postponed a decision on developing a light booster, Vega, to complement the existing Ariane 4/5 line.
China inaugurated Long March 4B operations last week with a piggyback launch of a Fengyun-1 meteorological satellite and Shijian-5 scientific satellite into polar orbits from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shaanxi Province southwest of Beijing.
AlliedSignal's T55-714A powerplant has demonstrated and exceeded its expected payload and fuel consumption benefits in tests performed last month at Ft. Campbell, Ky.
The U.S. Justice Dept. has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines and its regional subsidiary, American Eagle, charging that the carriers used anti-competitive pricing policies to force low-fare carriers from its lucrative Dallas-Fort Worth hub.
General Electric and Allison Advanced Development Co. are investigating the failure of their XTC-76/2 advanced turbine engine gas generator, the latest core engine the team is testing under the fighter engine portion of the U.S. government's Integrated High Performance Turbine Engine Technology (IHPTET) initiative. The core, which contained a number of advanced-technology features, failed in late February after about 6 hr. of runs at Allison facilities in Indianapolis.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN'S OCEANIC&NAVAL SYSTEMS unit at Annapolis, Md., will add a laser line scanner to its AN/AQS-14A side-looking towed array mine-hunting sonar system, to give the operator high-resolution imagery. The AQS-14 is the only airborne high-speed mine-hunting sonar system currently deployed by the U.S. Navy. The green laser would be used on the second pass through an area of interest, and would scan mine-like objects detected by sonar on the first pass, so the operator could positively identify them.
The wings of Airbus Industrie's proposed A3XX could be ferried between the U.K. and the mega-transport's final assembly line on the back of a modified A340, French executives suggested. The piggyback concept, which would require a modest investment, would contribute significantly to cutting the A3XX's production time and inventory costs.
Another upheaval is in store for the West's defense industrial base, potentially as radical as the swift concentration that swept U.S. defense companies in the 1990s. But the next restructuring, called ``transatlantic industrial integration,'' hinges on an historic departure in Pentagon buying practices: a willingness to purchase weapons and equipment from foreign companies, European and otherwise.
Allegations that Malaysia Airlines aircraft have landed at London Heathrow airport with unusually low fuel levels on several occasions have raised safety concerns. The reports have sparked an increase of inspections of long-haul aircraft arriving in the U.K. by the Civil Aviation Authority. Officials from the U.K. Department of Transportation met last week with Malaysia Airline officials, who maintained their aircraft were operating within international regulations.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Yuji Fujinawa has become chief of the joint staffs in Japan, replacing Adm. Kazuya Natsukawa, who has resigned. Gen. Tsuneo Isosima will succeed Fujinawa, and Adm. Kosei Fujita has succeeded Natsukawa as Navy chief of staff.
Testing of a General Electric CF34-8C1 engine, mounted on the company's Boeing 747 flying testbed, is scheduled to be concluded this week at GE's Mojave, Calif., test facility. The engine, which will power the Bombardier CRJ-700 regional jet, has been installed on a production-type pylon between the fuselage and inboard engine of the 747's left wing. Testing began Mar. 10 to obtain data to fulfill FAA certification requirements. Certification is expected in December.
SMITHS INDUSTRIES AND RADA ELECTRONIC INDUSTRIES of Israel are teaming to offer an advanced data acquisition and recording system for international upgrades of F-16 A/B aircraft. The system combines Smiths' voice and data recorder (VADR) and Rada's fatigue monitoring system (Face). The Royal Netherlands Air Force will be the first customer, as it upgrades a fleet of 150 aircraft. More than 700 of the VADR, which records four-channel voice and flight data, are already installed on 30 types of military and commercial aircraft.
Now in its eighth week, the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia is highlighting serious deficiencies in NATO's template for out-of-area coalition operations, which poses potential threats to the future efficacy of airpower, as well as the alliance itself.
NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuickSCAT) mission to measure wind speed and direction over the world's oceans is being seen as a pathfinder program that could become the model for building and orbiting science satellites on much shorter timelines than in the past.
Virgin Atlantic Airways and its chairman Richard Branson are eying a multimillion-dollar investment in the Rotary Rocket commercial reusable launch vehicle (RLV) project. Gary Hudson, Rotary Rocket's president, told Aviation Week&Space Technology at the Euroconsult space conference in Paris that Branson's participation could be critical to obtaining the funding needed to maintain the program on schedule. Branson visited Rotary Rocket's facilities in California last week to assess the project.
