Aerospace

METAL FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES, CT secured investment from Battle Investment Group to accelerate growth in its finishing and coatings solutions business

HEXCEL had $203.9m in Commercial Aerospace sales in 2Q20, down 51% vs 2Q19, citing start of inventory reductions in supply chain as partially

CRANE AEROSPACE & ELECTRONICS earned $20 in 2Q20 (vs $49m in 2Q19) on 23% lower sales; it has $506m backlog.

ADDITIVE FLIGHT SOLUTIONS (Stratasys/SIAEC joint venture) has received AS9100D certification for quality for additive manufacturing in aerospace.

The failure of a high-pressure liquid-oxygen feed line triggered a premature engine shutdown during the debut flight of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket, the company said on July 27.

The sleek, mimimalistic design is intended to blend safety for six passengers with maximizing the novel view of Earth from the edge of space.

COLLINS lost $317m in 2Q20 (vs $1.3b profit in 2Q19) on 36% lower sales, including 48% drop the commercial aftermarket.

PRATT & WHITNEY lost $457m in 2Q20 (vs $449m profit in 2Q19) on 32% lower sales, including 42% lower Commercial OE sales and 51% lower commercial

RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGIES had $3.8b net loss in 2Q20 (vs $1.9b profit) in 2Q19 on 24% higher revenues and says it expects pressures in commercial

Switzerland’s Dufour Aerospace has completed 550 flights of a large-scale technology demonstrator in an initial phase of testing for its tilt-wing electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing air taxi.

Joe Bentley to Chief Technology Officer of Panasonic Avionics, Lake Forest, CA.

Ask the Editors: It is likely that Spirit AeroSystems will try to acquire Bombardier’s aerostructures operations—but for less money.

KAMAN UK says it has reduced lead times for design/manufacture of complex mold tools for composites by 30% via use of springback modelling techniques.

L3HARRIS received FAA TSO for new SRVIVR25 CVDR with 25-hour capacity.

CHAMP CARGOSYSTEMS, Luxembourg was selected by Vallair to develop cargo management system for its prototype A321 freighter conversion; package will

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has completed the first flight of a Heron TP medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air system to be operated by Germany.

The FCC has endangered a national treasure by allowing high-power terrestrial transmitters in the band of frequencies that includes GPS.

UK’s Jet Zero Council, FlyZero study and hybrid-electric regional; Swift flies HALE UAV; Advanced electric trainer; Soft solid batteries.

Spaceflight’s new Sherpa-FX orbit transfer vehicle is to be deorbited after its first mission in low Earth orbit by deploying Tethers Unlimited’s drag-increasing Terminator Tape.

EmbraerX has begun “flights” of an engineering simulator for its electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing air taxi.

GE AVIATION reports the GE90 has surpassed 100m flight hours; it entered service in November 1995 and GE has delivered >2,800 GE90-94B-115Bs.

THALES AEROSPACE lost €109m in 1H20 (vs €270m profit in 1H19) on 25.4% lower sales.

HONEYWELL AEROSPACE earned $528m in 2Q20 (vs $907m in 1Q19) on 28% lower sales.

ELEMENT MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY and GE AVIATION teamed to provide Element customers with access to GE’s product qualification testing (PQT) capabilities.

AIRBUS has agreed with France and Spain to make amendments to A350 Repayable Launch Investment (RLI) contracts to end long-standing dispute with WTO.