Rich Piellisch has been covering industry segments and issues for Aviation Week since the late 1980s with an emphasis on Who Is Selling What to Whom in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Kaman Aerospace, seeking to reduce its 70% dependence on military business, has opened a plant in Chihuahua, Mexico, to help reduce the cost of commercial products. Aluminum extrusions for OEM helicopter manufacturers and their suppliers are the first products it will manufacture. “We’re working very hard in expanding our footprint in the commercial side,” says Greg Steiner, president of Kaman Aerospace Group. “We see a lot of value in having a more balanced portfolio. We’re bidding a lot of packages right now for commercial firms everywhere.”
Birds are more likely than bank bailouts to have caused US Airways flight 1549 to ditch in New York’s Hudson River on Jan. 15, but it’s the economy that has prevented the 10-year old Airbus A320 from being salvaged and returned to service. “Why repair this airplane when I have three of them on the ground?” asked Jim Jijawi, managing director of Source One Airplane Repair (SOAR) in Newport Beach, Calif., summing up the stance of the owners/operators. “The repairability decision on the airplane depends in large part on the economy,” he said.
Airbus and Russia's Irkut/ MiG are exploring whether to jointly convert passenger A320s into cargo configuration. For Irkut, the work means moving from parts supply to aircraft conversion. It also may mean new maintenance business once the converted aircraft are deployed. (Irkut currently does not perform any Airbus maintenance.) For Airbus and parent EADS, the deal with Irkut could pave an economical way to a bigger piece of a market that's growing significantly faster than the passenger jet business.
