Pratt & Whitney expects a 2-3% improvement in fuel burn for the PW4062 engines that will power the U.S. Air Force’s KC-46A tanker, says Pratt Military Engines President Warren Boley. The first engine delivery to Boeing is set for 2013. The performance improvement package (PIP) was requested by USAF but will not be different from PIPs offered to Pratt’s customer for the 94-in. PW4062 on Boeing 767s, says Pratt Senior Vice President Paul Adams.
Scientists on the Messenger project are poring over the first 1,500 images ever collected from orbit around Mercury, in preparation for the start of global mapping this week. In its first shot of the Solar System’s innermost planet (right), the probe produced this image of the planet’s south polar region. The area marked off by white lines had never been imaged from a spacecraft before.
Israel and Russia will work more closely in space activities under a framework agreement their civil space agencies signed in Tel Aviv March 27 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looking on. The agreement expands cooperation in the areas of space research, observation, navigation, medicine and biology in space, research in advanced materials, and space launch, according to Netanyahu’s office. The agreement was signed by Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, and Zvi Kaplan, director general of the Israeli Space Agency.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz tells Senate appropriators the service will be “greater and smaller” in the future. It is just the latest sign that military leaders believe it is inevitable that the armed services will shrink once the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down and federal budget austerity reigns.
Difficult economic times have a way of focusing the mind. That is certainly the case with EADS and Finmeccanica, each having taken steps to make good on commitments to help reposition their respective businesses. In a bid to grow its services activities, EADS acquired Vector Aerospace, the Canadian maintenance, repair and overhaul company with considerable business in the U.K. and U.S. Vector will serve as “an independent, multiplatform MRO services provider” within Eurocopter, EADS says.
Separately, A320NEO launch customer IndiGo has selected the PW1100G for its planned fleet of 150 aircraft. The order, which includes another 30 options, comes on top of P&W’s recent selection by lessor International Lease Finance Corp. for 60 firm orders and 40 options for PW1100G-powered A320NEOs. Hess says the Indian carrier’s order represents one of P&W’s largest commercial orders in 30 years.
Michael C. Hinderberger has been named vice president of engineering of Piper Aircraft , Vero Beach, Fla. He was an airframe integration and certification consultant for Rolls-Royce Deutschland on assignment from the Belcan Corp. Hinderberger has also held executive and engineering positions at Hawker Beechcraft and Gulfstream Aerospace and was flight test team leader for the Bombardier Global Express.
The U.K. has run a test program, called Trial Daedalus, to assess how to train non-pilots to operate unmanned aircraft. Out of an initial list of 90, four non-pilots were put through the program. The U.K. effort adapts a similar U.S. Air Force program.
I agree with former Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Paul Kaminski who says in “Adapt Or Fail” (AW&ST March 7/14, p. 50) that the F-35 program needs to be realigned as a “block”-solution approach. Run now with what works; improve it in later steps. In the civilian and military programs (including F-117) I’ve been associated with over the years, customers (mostly military) keep asking for more things.
Across the northern half of the main Japanese island of Honshu, aerospace managers are bringing factories back online, working around problems left by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and sending parts out the door. The hardest hit of the big manufacturers, IHI Corp., has resumed some production at its two aero-engine factories in Soma and hopes to get its whole operation in the city back online by May. Fuji Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries say most of their suppliers are also working again.
For the U.S. Navy, vertical-takeoff-and-landing has long been the answer to getting aircraft onto as many ships as possible. Cost and complexity has always been the enemy of VTOL, but unmanned technology has rekindled interest.
James G. Ehrig has joined the aviation practice of Eckert Seamans Cherin and Mellot of Washington. He was an attorney adviser at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Hearings and held a similar position at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The operating profit of the world’s top 100 aerospace and defense companies climbed 19% in 2010 to $58 billion as the industry recovered from the global recession, according to a new study by PwC. Revenues rose 2%, reaching a record $646 billion. The study also found a steep reduction in large-program charges and impairments that had dragged down performance in prior years.
Power cuts are a bigger problem for Fuji Heavy Industries than earthquake and tsunami damage to suppliers, the company says. All of Fuji’s product lines are influenced by the difficulties, says the company, whose products include Japanese military aircraft and major assemblies for foreign aircraft builders, including Boeing. While it is unclear when full electricity service will be restored in Japan, Fuji appears optimistic, since power companies are progressively bringing coal-fired generating units back on line.
Jack Jones has been named vice president and general manager of Boeing South Carolina of Charleston, succeeding Tim Coyle, who will lead operations at Boeing’s Aviation Technical Services facility in Everett, Wash. Jones was vice president of the Everett Delivery Center.
Across China, airports are being expanded, airline traffic is booming and civil aircraft development is moving ahead, but that seems to be not enough for Beijing, which is according the sector high priority in a new national five-year economic plan. Aircraft-building is included in seven industries that the plan has elevated to strategic significance, with specific mention of the importance of the Comac C919 narrowbody airliner program.
When Delta Air Lines merged with Northwest Airlines in 2008, it acquired a crown jewel: a hub at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport that provided lots of capacity into the Asia-Pacific region, the world’s fastest-growing aviation market. Today, Delta’s Tokyo operations generate $2 billion annually, or 8% of total revenues.
The British government plans to make changes to its controversial air passenger duty (APD) as part of its new budget plan, in a proposal that is drawing mixed reviews from industry. The government has offered a temporary freeze on raising the APD rate, but now is indexing the levy to inflation. Airlines have applauded the move not to raise APD, but are unhappy about the inflation indexing and still want the charge to be eliminated. The government also is moving forward with plans to consider extending APD to flights on business jets.
Despite a host of hypotheses about the absence of the Lockheed Martin F-22 in the air war over Libya, the U.S. Air Force says the answer is simple. The aircraft were not in the right place at the right time. “Because of the speed upon which the operations came together with our coalition partners, [Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn] needed to look realistically at the fighter assets already within Europe to execute operations,” according to officials on the Joint Task Force.
Taxiways that will be used by Virgin Galactic’s suborbital SpaceShipTwo and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft are reflected in the windows of the terminal at Spaceport America. Crews are completing the exteriors of the terminal buildings and beginning internal finishing at the facility, which is about 30 mi. east of Truth or Consequences, N.M. Drop-testing of SpaceShipTwo continues at the Scaled Composites facility in Mojave, Calif., with more tests likely in the coming “month or so,” according to George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic.
March 30—Wings Club Annual Meeting and Outstanding Aviator Award honoring WASP Group. Also, March 31-Luncheon featuring IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani. Both events at the Yale Club, New York. See www.wingsclub.org/upcomingevents April 6-8—University of Westminster Aviation Seminar: “Air Transport Economics and Planning.” London. See www.westminster.ac.uk/aviation April 12-14—Aerial Refueling Systems Advisory Group International’s 2011 Conference. Hyatt Regency Atlanta. Call +1 (937) 431-8106 or see www.arsaginc.com
As in many other domains, the French approach to low-cost carriers (LCCs) is enigmatic. Travelers, although increasingly familiar with the low-fares/no-frills formula, do not openly admit they are ready to make concessions in order toslip away from legacy carriers. Perhaps for reasons of status or self-esteem, they remain uneasy confessing to friends or colleagues that the rock-bottom prices of LCCs are difficult to resist. But traffic numbers unveil the LCCs’ true story.
United Launch Alliance (ULA) and XCOR Aerospace are planning a joint effort to develop a low-cost upper-stage engine in the same class as the venerable RL-10, using technology XCOR is developing for its Lynx suborbital spaceplane. The two companies have been testing actively cooled aluminum nozzles that XCOR plans to use in its liquid oxygen/kerosene 5K18 engine for the Lynx, a reusable two-seat piloted vehicle the company intends to use for commercial research and tourist flights.
Brazilian manufacturer Embraer’s creation in January of a defense and security division has as much to do with sporting events as it has with aircraft. Brazil will host the soccer World Cup in 2014 and Summer Olympics in 2016, with hundreds of thousands of visitors expected for both events plus the annual Carnival. Public safety and security will be a government priority, and Embraer wants to use this boost to build up its defense business.
