Even as carriers await the full flowering of the FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation System and Eurocontrol's Single European Sky ATM Research (Sesar) effort, a purely intra- and inter-airline arrivals synchronization technology is racking up solid savings for one major carrier.
Doug Meador (see photos) has been named president of BAA Aviation's Dallas Airmotive subsidiary and Mark Taylor managing director of its H+S Aviation subsidiary, Portsmouth, England. Meador was CFO and has been vice president/general manager of operations for Dallas Airmotive's Forest Park maintenance, repair and overhaul facility. Taylor was general manager of H+S and had been head of BBA's component and accessory repair business.
Industrial robots are becoming a common sight on aircraft production lines, laying up composites, drilling holes, inserting fasteners and inspecting structures—automating repetitive tasks that require painstaking precision and drive up the touch-labor costs in aircraft assembly. Now robots are headed for the overhaul center. Lufthansa Technik and Helmut Schmidt University have developed an 8-axis robot that automatically strips the paint from parts using plastic-bead blasting, reducing the time required while improving quality.
Boeing and Aeromexico have completed an order for six 787-9s that was announced in July, continuing the Mexican airline's preference for Boeing aircraft. The carrier also has ordered 60 737 MAXs. In other business, Taiwan's China Airlines has ordered six Boeing 777-300ERs, its first from the twin-engine family. And, the U.S. Navy will take its 13th and 14th C-40A Clipper transports in a $145 million order. The aircraft are derived from the 737-700 and are replacing C-9B Skytrains.
Technologies that allow complex contoured parts to be produced simply and cost-effectively are enabling metallic structures to hold their ground against composites as manufacturers strive to cut cost and weight out of their aircraft. Working with Airbus, France's Dufieux Industrie has developed the milling mirror system to replace hazardous chemical milling of curved aluminum fuselage panels to reduce their weight. One machining center has a high-speed milling head, working in synchronization with its twin with a support head.
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Engine manufacturers will be busy in 2013 as testing accelerates on the latest commercial turbofans and work advances on the next generation of military powerplants. Production will rise, but more significantly on the commercial side than the military. The pace is highest at CFM and Pratt & Whitney as they battle for the single-aisle airliner market with the Leap-1 and PW1000G, respectively. While the 2011 and 2012 order levels are unlikely to be sustained in 2013, it will see vital tests for both engines.
Key gains by NATO allies in the increasingly important military discipline of close air support (CAS) may be at risk, because equipment and budgetary decisions at national levels contradict alliance standards for training forward air controllers (FACs).
EU carbon dioxide allowances (EUAs) briefly set a new low in December before rebounding higher through the month. December 2013 EUAs took up the front-year position after December 2012 EUA contracts expired in the forward over-the-counter and exchange-based futures markets on Dec. 3 and 17, respectively. December 2013 EUAs fell to a fresh low of €5.99/metric ton ($7.92/ton) on Dec. 4, on renewed doubts over the European Commission's ability to push through market reforms that would include delaying 900 million EUAs from auctions in 2013-15.
Latin America is one of the brighter spots in the world of aviation, with traffic growth forecast second only to that of the Middle East. But although the region's airlines are furiously adding capacity and turning out healthy profits, lagging infrastructure investment and onerous government regulation could prevent Latin America's airlines from achieving their full potential.
Active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars have transformed military aviation, providing significantly greater multi-mode capability and reliability. Now the technology is moving into the land and sea domains. Thales's APAR active phased-array radar is already operational on frigates with three European navies, and the DDG-1000, the U.S. Navy's first AESA-equipped warship, will launch in 2013 fitted with Raytheon's SPY-3 radar.
The Transportation Security Administration is commissioning a study about whether the X-ray body scanners used to screen passengers at airports emit too much radiation. The study also will evaluate whether the design and maintenance of machines that use X-ray technology could prevent over-exposure to harmful radiation. The safety of X-ray screening machines was called into question in a 2011 report by ProPublica, a non-profit investigative news group, which suggested that up to 100 U.S. airline passengers per year could contract cancer from airport screenings.
It has been called the most significant advance in jet engines since the turbofan: development of variable-cycle “third stream” engines with 25% lower specific fuel consumption than today's fighter powerplants. General Electric and Rolls-Royce will ground-test demonstrator engines in 2013, and GE and Pratt & Whitney are under contract to mature the technology and test new adaptive-fan engine designs in 2016. In addition to the high-pressure core and low-pressure bypass streams of a conventional turbofan, these variable-bypass engines have a third, outer flowpath.
Italy's defense budget is on the upswing again after deep cuts in 2012. However, the defense minister, the retired Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, has received a preliminary green light for a major restructuring and deep cuts to all three of the armed forces. The plan is subject to future political decisions, but appears to be unavoidable.
The initial move away from punishing good technicians for maintenance errors began about two decades ago as savvy leaders began to understand the downside of disciplining to “fix” errors—and the upside of instead conducting a thorough evaluation of the “why” behind those errors. Since then, leading maintenance organizations have created non-punitive cultures in which committees dig into the causes behind errors with the aim of identifying whether changes in policy, process or documentation should be made to prevent future occurrences of the same errors.
General Electric has confirmed it will purchase Italian aero engine specialist Avio SpA from Cinven, a European private equity firm, and government-owned defense group Finmeccanica for €3.3 billion ($4.36 billion).
Commercial-scale, competitively priced production of drop-in biofuel replacements for petroleum-based jet fuel remains elusive, but technology work continues unabated. Two synthetic-fuel pathways are already approved for use in aircraft, in blends up to 50%: Fischer-Tropsch synthetic paraffinic kerosene (SPK) from coal, gas or biomass; and hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) from animal fats and vegetables oils. At least two more could be added in 2013: alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) and synthetic kerosene with aromatics (SKA).
A three-dimensional holographic radar that overcomes wind-farm interference with air traffic control radars could be commercially operational by late 2013. When an aircraft flies over a wind farm, its track can be lost amid the Doppler returns from the rotating blades of wind turbines. The problem is growing, as wind farms proliferate worldwide. Aveillant's holographic infill radar with its flat phased-array antennas provides the missing position and altitude data for aircraft.
Advances in rocket engine technology do not come along often, so it was noteworthy in October 2012 when Orbital Technologies flew a sounding rocket powered by its “vortex” engine, which injects fuel and liquid oxygen so the burning mixture does not touch the walls of the combustion chamber, allowing it to be thinner, lighter and cheaper. Oxidizer is injected at an angle that sets up a pair of coaxial vortices. Combustion occurs in the innermost swirl, the outer vortex protecting the chamber walls from the heat of combustion.
