After a strong month for widebody order intake in March, Airbus in April had to content itself with booking seven A320s from Cebu Pacific last month, to drive the 2010 order intake to 67 aircraft. Deliveries now stand at 159 through the first four months. They were down from March, in part owing to the Easter holiday and airspace closures in Europe due to volcanic ash.
The Comac C919 program is driving the formation of a series of partnerships between Chinese and Western companies that will lift the technology and competitiveness of Avic businesses seeking a stronger presence in the world market.
Hawaiian Airlines’ transition to a widebody fleet of at least 16 Airbus A330s and A350s is underway. The aircraft, which will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines, will replace the carrier’s Boeing 767s. The first of three A330s Hawaiian is leasing from CIT Aerospace was delivered late last month (see photo). Another is to arrive this month, and the third in November. Hawaiian has placed firm orders for seven A330-200s, the first of which is to be delivered in 2011; and six A350-800s, with first delivery expected in 2017.
An article in the May 3 issue (p. 34) stated that International Launch Services provided proprietary data to The Tauri Group for a study on satellite launch costs. ILS says it did not relay pricing or other proprietary data to Tauri.
In the aftermath of US Airways Flight 1549, the NTSB is determined to cultivate the belief that transport accidents are survivable. The successful Jan. 15, 2009, water landing was “the outcome of a perfect storm of circumstances,” NTSB Chairman Debbie Hersman noted at the board’s final hearing on the accident last week. The probe, she says, revealed that “the conditions that led to the ultimate success of the ditching were no less improbable than the conditions that caused the crash in the first place.”
Boeing has formed an Airlift and Tankers (A&T) operating division within its military aircraft business unit to assume program management responsibility for C-17s and its international and U.S. tanker programs. A&T will operate from the company’s St. Louis military headquarters. Military Aircraft President Chris Chadwick says creating the separate unit will “introduce efficiencies that will result in cost savings for taxpayers.” It will headed by Jean Chamberlin, who is in charge of Boeing’s drive to win the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X tanker replacement contract.
Gayle Berry’s letter contains confusion about variants of the AD/A-1 Skyraider. As he says, the AD-7 (A-1J)was a single-seater; and had four guns (two per side) mounted mid-wing and outboard of the propeller arc. I can’t speak to operational power restrictions but given the loads that ADs removed from aircraft carriers without catapulting, I’d be surprised if those takeoffs used less than full power.
“Reusable Boost” by Graham Warwick (AW&ST April 19, p. 30), contains a statement that the cost of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV) is rapidly escalating “in part due to increased overhead resulting from the Obama administration’s decision to cancel development of NASA’s Ares 1 crew launch vehicle.” The Boeing Delta IV and Lockheed Martin Atlas V are mature, proven vehicles that have been in series production for years. They share no hardware with the Ares 1, which is still in detail design.
Boeing has added 20 unidentified 777 orders to this year’s total, but also reduced the year’s total by four. It says RwandAir will buy two 737-800s to broaden its network beyond regional jets. The changes bring the 777 net order book for the year to 27, the 737’s to 72 and the total for all models to 114.
Change is once again afoot within the U.S. Air Force. Very quietly over the last year, the new Air Force secretary and chief of staff have laid the foundation for the next significant and historic cultural shift toward tomorrow’s USAF. As it evolves to a new era, the final state remains undetermined. History, though, may provide some context to assess what lies ahead.
The shuttle Atlantis is poised for its final scheduled mission—the delivery of a compact Russian docking and laboratory module to the International Space Station. Liftoff from Kennedy Space Center is set for May 14 at 2:20 p.m. EDT initiating a 12-day flight.
The central monitoring system of a Cathay Pacific Airways Airbus A330 warned of control system faults with both Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines before one became stuck at high thrust, forcing the crew to land at 230 kt. (426 kph.) on April 13, Hong Kong investigators say in a preliminary report. The monitoring system also announced that the two engines had stalled. Early in the flight, the crew noticed fluctuations in engine pressure ratios, but decided, in consultation with the Cathay engineering department, to continue to Hong Kong.
Continental and United Airlines’ maintenance and engineering strategies are quite different. “At first glance there do not appear to be many [maintenance] synergies” with the merger, but this could present an opportunity to take a fresh look at maintenance and engineering services and to reinvent some processes, says Kevin Michaels, co-founder and partner of AeroStrategy. This is precisely what Jim Keenan, senior vice president of United Services since August 2008, has been doing as he examines the maintenance division’s fixed costs.
There are a lot of ghosts in the civil aircraft industry. Companies that have left the business or been acquired in recent decades include such names as McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, Fokker, Saab, Fairchild and British Aerospace. But the list of brand-new companies that entered the passenger aircraft market after Airbus in 1970 and thrived contains but one name: Embraer.
Douglas Barrie (London), Neelam Mathews (New Delhi)
India intends to integrate a variant of its Nirbhay long-range cruise missile on the Suhkoi Su-30MKI Flanker strike aircraft, following the weapon’s initial development in the ground-launch configuration. The addition of the Nirbhay to the Flanker’s weapons inventory would give the platform a long-range—and potentially strategic—strike capability. While details on the Nirbhay program remain scant, Indian officials have suggested the weapon will have a range of 800-1,000 km. (500-620 mi.).
Monarch Aircraft Engineering will provide maintenance, repair and overhaul services in the U.K. for Boeing’s GoldCare after-market support system for 787s. The company’s service offerings will include line maintenance and A- through D-checks from its facilities at Manchester International and London-Luton airports. So far, Boeing has just one GoldCare customer, TUI Travel, a U.K.-based leisure flight specialist whose 13 787s are to be spread among four affiliate airlines in the U.K. and the Continent. The U.K.-based aircraft are expected to use Monarch’s MRO services.
Austria has failed to fully comply with European Union rules on aviation safety checks at airports, prompting a formal notice from the European Commission to rectify its shortfalls. In a so-called “reasoned opinion,” the EC has notified the Austrian government that it has two months to comply with European rules that require national regulations to be adapted to the EU legislation. Brussels says that without that step being taken, there is no assurance that safety checks in Austria fully meet EU regulations.
SES World Skies has completed the acquisition of ProtoStar II at an auction held by Asian satcom startup ProtoStar, which is in bankruptcy protection. Renamed SES-7, the Boeing-built spacecraft—launched last year—will be redeployed to 108.2 deg. E. Long. where it will provide incremental capacity for Southeast Asian and Asia-Pacific customers alongside NSS-11.
Ever since it entered the regional jet market in the early 1990s, Embraer has used the advantage of lower wages in Brazil to hold down costs and competitively price its aircraft. But Brazil’s rapid economic growth and appreciation of the nation’s currency, the real, against the U.S. dollar are eroding that advantage.
Olivier Villa, Dassault Aviation’s senior vice president for civil aircraft, says supplier selection and work-sharing for the company’s new super-midsize jet (SMS), will be finalized by year-end. He declines to say when the SMS will be introduced, but insists the debut will be based on market conditions. Similarly, Villa says, the design is frozen.
The three MBDA Aster missile partner nations are conducting wind-tunnel work toward fixing problems that resulted in two test-shot failures of the medium-range surface-to-air missile last year.
Boeing’s outlook for the Middle East rests on twin-engine, twin-aisle transports satisfying nearly half of that market’s projected demand for 1,710 new aircraft over the next 20 years. That view underscores the basics of a sparsely populated region that has far less demand for single-aisle jets to serve regional destinations.
Niall Olver, former CEO of Grob Aerospace, says he is close to finding a buyer for the Grob SPn utility jet, which was not included when Grob Aerospace was reorganized into Grob Aviation after going bankrupt last year. Olver declines to say who the likely buyer will be, but insists it won’t be a Chinese company such as Avic, which had expressed an interest in buying the composite twinjet and its technologies.
The Full Ice Protection System (FIPS) for the AgustaWestland AW139 medium twin helicopter received FAA certification, which follows the EASA certification that was issued last February. TCAA (Canada) certification is expected soon. The AW139 is the first helicopter in its weight category to be granted FIPS certification. The system allows the aircraft to fly into known icing conditions with high-level all-weather capabilities. The company expects to deliver 12 FIPS-equipped AW139s this year. The European manufacturer had teams in Italy and the U.S.
