In a 21-page ruling, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge rejected “in its entirety” Boeing's motion that he dismiss the case challenging its decision to build a second 787 final assembly factory in South Carolina. As a result, the full case will be heard in arguments likely to last into the fall. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), which prompted the case, praised the ruling. A Boeing official said it was “not unexpected.” Judge Clifford H.
China is buying 88 Airbus A320s with 42 going to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's leasing operation, with the rest to be allocated by the China Aviation Supplies Holding Co. Deliveries are planned from 2012-15. Meanwhile, Airbus says it is boosting A320 rudder production at its Hafei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Center joint venture with Chinese partners. The goal is to satisfy half of Airbus's single-aisle rudder requirement from that facility.
A 60-cent-per-gallon decline in the spot price of jet kerosene since April has reduced airline industry costs by $8 billion on an annualized basis, says JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker. That should cushion airlines if a slowdown in economic growth causes demand for air travel to weaken.
KLM has completed a commercial flight powered by a 50-50 blend of biofuel and kerosene. The June 29 flight between Amsterdam and Paris is a precursor to broader use of such fuels starting in September. KLM used cooking oil-derived biofuel, but says it is open to other source material.
The Aerospace Industries Association of America (AIA) is launching a campaign to promote the aerospace and defense industries' role in the U.S. economy, calling attention to “the critical role of aerospace and defense in the welfare and the future of our nation,” says AIA President and CEO Marion Blakey. She notes in a speech at the Aero Club in Washington that the U.S. needs export-control reforms to further development of unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Saab's move to buy Sensis Corp. strengthens the company's activities in air traffic management, and expands Saab's footprint in the U.S., where it has been eager to grow. The $155 million acquisition comes with the potential of $40 million more to be paid by 2014 depending on how Sensis performs.
Lockheed Martin is planning to cut 1,500 of 28,000 workers from its aeronautics division, which operates largely in Fort Worth, Marietta, Ga.; and Palmdale, Calif. The move comes on top of recently announced plans to release 1,200 workers from the space sector. “Bold and responsible action is necessary to meet customer expectations and reduce our costs. We are realigning the organization to be more efficient and agile, and a reduction in force will enable us to meet the requirements of our changing business environment,” says division head Ralph Heath.
After lagging through much of 2010, flight testing of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter significantly exceeded plans for the first six months of this year, with aircraft logging around 450 flights versus an aim of 378. Test points accomplished in the first half of 2011 exceeded 3,350, versus a goal of 2,996. All three variants surpassed test plans, with the previously problematic short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35B logging 170 flights and 1,572 test points through June 28 against plans for 138 and 1,072, respectively.
Boeing has completed integration of the U.S. Army's mobile High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator (HEL TD), which mounts a beam-control system on a tactical truck. The HEL TD will be delivered to the Army-managed High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., where the weapon-power Solid State Laser Testbed Experiment (SSLTE) is being installed and will begin functional tests in 2012.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has been awarded an almost $40 million contract to build a high-power laser weapon demonstrator. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (Hellads) program aims to demonstrate a complete 150-kw weapon system weighing less than 5 kg/kw, making it small enough to be installed on tactical aircraft such as bombers or gunships.
LightSquared has revised its blueprint for a broadband wireless network as the final report on interference testing shows its original deployment plan is “incompatible with aviation GPS operations.” The report by a technical working group formed by LightSquared and the U.S. GPS Industry Council says LightSquared's plans to deploy 40,000 high-power terrestrial transmitters across the U.S. “would result in a complete loss of GPS operations below 2,000 ft. above ground level over a large radius” from metropolitan areas.
The Chinese air force says it will open six airfields to joint military and civil use between now and 2015. The airfields, which are not identified, join 63 military facilities that the air force has made available for civilian use since the 1990s. Military flying takes up 23.51% of China's usable airspace, says the air force. Civil traffic uses 32%, it says, without accounting for the rest.
Inflammatory accusations by Canada's Competition Bureau have forced Air Canada and United Continental Holdings to suspend a proposed joint venture on cross-border services intended to mirror immunized accords already enacted by the two carriers and many of their Star Alliance partners.
A quotation in the Washington Outlook column of June 27 (p. 22) was attributed incorrectly. It was Phillip Straub, Garmin International's vice president of aviation engineering, who likened LightSquared's broadband wireless plan to starting “a lawn mower in a library.”
U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Central Asia will be able to supplement the tactical imagery they receive from airborne sensors with data from the Pentagon's first Operationally Responsive Space (ORS-1) satellite, launched June 29 after a 30-month development.
The Paris air show was dominated by airplane and engine orders—enormous numbers of them. But suppliers were generating their own news, including PPG Aerospace's introduction of a process for making cockpit and cabin windows that the company says saves weight and lightens life-cycle costs.
There was more window news in Paris. In a new five-year contract, Airbus named the Nordam Transparency Group as its supplier of cabin windows for the A320 family, including its New Engine Option program that led all orders at the show. Nordam will fulfill the “multi-million-dollar” contract with its trademarked Nordex 188 stretched acrylic. The work will require 15 new employees at its Tulsa, Okla., factory and is due to begin Jan. 1, 2012. At peak annual production, 60,000 panes will flow out of Tulsa.
EU carbon credit prices dramatically crashed at the end of June to lows not seen since the start of the global economic downturn in 2009 as the emergence of a new policy proposal to increase energy efficiency in the 27-member state bloc combined with widespread fears over the Greek economy to push the value of emissions permits down.
Once the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) enters service, operators who need engineering and spares support will have their phone calls answered, at least initially, in a somewhat unexpected location: the Boeing Operations Center in Long Beach, Calif.
Direct analysis of the material in the spectacular ice geysers erupting from fissures at the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus have buoyed scientists' belief that there is a liquid-water ocean under the moon's frozen surface. Measurements with the Cassini probe's cosmic dust analyzer found evidence of an “ocean-like” composition in the relatively large grains of ice near the moon's surface, adding weight to earlier suggestions that the geysers are produced from a liquid-water layer between the moon's rocky core and its frozen mantle.
Astronomers are savoring the flexibility they have gained by flying the world's largest infrared (IR) telescope following a June 23 Pluto occultation that required an 1,800-mi. dash to a sweet spot for viewing over the mid-Pacific Ocean. NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (Sofia), a Boeing 747SP modified to carry a 2.5-meter IR telescope, used a High-speed Imaging Photometer (HIPO) to make the observation, which occurred when Pluto passed before a distant star.
In the span of one week, President Barack Obama praises an aerospace supplier for contributing to the U.S. manufacturing base—then slams tax incentives that have helped sustain the aircraft industry during tough times. Visiting Alcoa's Davenport Works in Iowa, Obama said, “Almost every airplane in the world has some kind of Alcoa product in it.”
The biz av community was already upset with Obama over the administration's plan to dismantle the Block Aircraft Registration Request program, which allows owners to withhold aircraft registration numbers from online flight-tracking programs.
Meanwhile, contractors breathe a sigh of relief over not having to disclose to whom they make political donations. Word emerged in the spring that a potential new executive order from the Obama administration would require federal contractors to disclose certain political donations made in the two years before they bid for work (AW&ST, May 16, p. 21).
Budget politics continues to dominate debate on Capitol Hill, and the Senate has agreed to stay in session this week, rather than proceeding with a scheduled July 4 recess. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says defense and war costs have grown 74% since 2001, when the government was running a $128 billion surplus.
