The Week In Aerospace And Defense

London’s Heathrow Airport is to test a steeper final approach angle in a bid to reduce noise. Trials with a 3.2-deg. glideslope – versus the standard 3 deg. – will be conducted between September and March 2016. At 3.2 deg. an aircraft will be 170 ft. higher when 8 nm for the airport, reducing noise by 1%. Airport officials believe 3.5 deg. is feasible in the future.

Spirit AeroSystems has completed the fuselage for the first Boeing 737 MAX. The fuselage is being transported to Renton, Washington, where Boeing is expected to begin final assembly of the first aircraft – a 737-8 with line number 5602 – by the beginning of September. First flight is planned in first quarter 2016, with first deliveries of the 737-8 by mid-2017.

U.S. airlines more than doubled their collective net profit for the first half of 2015 to approximately $8.7 billion, according to trade association Airlines for America. The net earnings, from 10 publicly traded mainline U.S. passenger airlines, were up from $3.9 billion in the first half of 2014. After-tax net margin more than doubled to 11.2% for the six months.

Airbus has begun assembly of the wings for the first A350-1000 at its U.K. plant in Broughton, North Wales. The carbon-fiber wing has the same span as that of the in-service A350-900, but 90% of the parts are modified and the trailing edge is extended to increase area for additional payload and range. The stretched A350-1000 is expected to fly in second half 2016.

After a financial turnaround, Qantas has placed an initial order for eight Boeing 787-9s, converting options placed more than a decade ago. The Australian carrier originally ordered 35 787-9s, but in 2012 canceled the firm orders while retaining options and purchase rights for 50 aircraft. The airline still holds 15 options and 30 purchase rights.

IndiGo, India’s biggest and most profitable privately owned airline, has finalized its order for 250 Airbus A320neos, ending months of uncertainty after a memorandum of understanding signed with Airbus in October lapsed. The deal is worth $25.7 billion at list prices. Deliveries will begin in 2018. IndiGo has now ordered a total of 530 A320s.

U.S. Congress has called on the FAA to provide a full report on the air traffic control automation failure that caused 475 canceled flights at the three Washington, D.C.-area airports on Aug. 15. The FAA says the issue was a fault in new software for the Lockheed Martin En Route Automation Modernization system at a high-altitude radar facility in Leesburg, Virginia.

Bad weather and poor visibility had been reported in the remote mountain range were an ATR 42-300 operated by Indonesia’s Trigana Air crashed on Aug. 16, killing all 49 passengers and five crew on board. The aircraft was on route from Jayapura on the coast to Oksibil inland, in the Papua region of Indonesia, when it crashed in mountainous terrain.

Manufacturers of aircraft equipment using lithium-metal batteries should demonstrate adequate circuit protection to mitigate against known failure modes, says the U.K.’s Air Accident Investigation Branch in its final report on the battery fire that severely damaged an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787-8 at London Heathrow Airport in July 2013. The report confirms crossed and trapped battery wires on a Honeywell emergency locator transmitter caused a short circuit and thermal runaway.

Sixty years after the U-2’s first flight, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is studying an all-new stealthy design, potentially optionally manned, to replace the iconic spy plane. Despite continuous upgrades and remaining airframe life beyond 2045, the U-2 is scheduled to be retired by the U.S. Air Force in 2019 and replaced by the unmanned Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk.

The U.S. Navy has begun electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton maritime-surveillance unmanned aircraft in an anechoic chamber at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. Eight weeks of EMC testing, during which the aircraft will be controlled from an external ground station, with verify subsystems can operate without interfering with each other.

The U.S. Navy has begun integration of Lockheed Martin’s stealthy Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (Lrasm) on the Boeing F/A-18E/F, conducting fit checks with a mass simulator at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. Airworthiness testing is to begin this month. Based on the Jassm-ER missile, Lrasm is scheduled to become operational on the B-1B in 2018 and F/A-18E/F in 2019.

Airbus Defence and Space has demonstrated its Sferion system, designed to assist helicopter pilots operating in degraded visual environments. The system fuses a laser-radar obstacle warning sensor and obstacle database to provide a picture of the helicopter’s surroundings on helmet-mounted or multi-function displays, allowing the aircraft to be landed safely in brownout conditions. The system was demonstrated at Germany’s army aviation center in Buckeburg, on a Bell 206 light helicopter.

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has delivered the first batch of T129 attack helicopters to the Turkish army under the ATAK program. Based on the AgustaWestland AW129, the “early delivery configuration” T129As are limited to using the nose-mounted 20mm gun and unguided rockets. The follow-on T129B will allow use of precision-guided weapons.

Europe’s Arianespace delivered two communications satellites to geostationary transfer orbit Aug. 20, including the Thales Alenia Space-built Eutelsat 8 West B and Intelsat 34, manufactured by Space Systems/Loral. The heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA flight was Arianespace’s seventh launch campaign of 2015, and the fifth Ariane 5 mission this year. 

Orbital ATK has purchased a second Atlas V flight from United Launch Alliance as it works on a re-engined version of its Antares launcher to fulfil a NASA contract to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The company’s Cygnus cargo carrier is scheduled to launch on an Atlas in December. Antares is expected to return to flight in 2016 and conduct at least two of three planned Cygnus flights.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched its fifth resupply mission to the International Space Station on Aug. 19. HTV-5 Kounotori, carrying 4.7 tons of cargo, is on course to rendezvous Aug. 24. On board is a Japanese high-energy electron telescope, hardware for a galley in the U.S. Unity module and 14 Planet Labs Flock 2b cubesats for deployment from the ISS.