1. Ratchet Wrench Manufacturer: Armstrong Industrial Hand Tools Applications: The Flex Head Ratcheting Torque Wrench allows for a 10-deg. ratcheting angle, making it usable in more confined areas. Specifications: The ratcheting torque wrench is made of hardened steel with chrome plating. A locking collar prevents the scale settings from changing during work.

The Dutch defense ministry has been increasing its work with industry, as evinced by last year's public-private partnership agreement with DutchAero Services at Woensdrecht. It not only secured maintenance of the Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16's Pratt & Whitney F100 engines, but it also aimed to attract third-party customers for F100 engine MRO work as well as future work on other engine types.

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1. Greener Future Manufacturer: Crane Aerospace & L-3 Applications: The GreenTaxi uses its own auxiliary power unit to provide electric power without using the aircraft's engines, resulting in up to 4% fuel savings and as much as 80% fewer CO2 emissions.

Washington The FAA's 90-day extension of the repair-station draft-rule comment period means industry has until mid-November to weigh in on what would be a sweeping rewrite of Part 145. Barring a significant about-face, however, the 70-odd comments received by the rule's original Aug. 20 comment deadline make one thing clear: Certificate holders large and small are unified in their general discontent with the agency's proposal.

Kazakhstan's national carrier Air Astana faces two big decisons: It has to select companies to complete interiors for its new Boeing 767-300ERs and provide heavy maintenance for its Airbus A320s. Air Astana usually sends its A320s to ATC Southend in the U.K. for heavy checks, but the carrier's senior VP engineering group, John Wainwright, says it is considering sending some to China for heavy checks because the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) shops there are cheaper.

1. Fiber Optics Manufacturer: Luna Innovations Applications: Luna Innovations' Optical Distributed Sensor Interrogator (ODiSI) can be used in composite manufacturing for load, fatigue and mechanical testing. Specifications: ODiSI uses fiber-optic sensors with thousands of sensing points per fiber to more easily detect defects in composite structures. www.lunainnovations.com

What links the following statements (besides all being subjects covered in this issue)? •British Airways plans to receive its first Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 in 2013 (page MRO18). •Air France KLM Engineering & Maintenance's new engine test cell at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport accommodates big engines such as the GE90 (page MRO32).