June 1-3—FAA’s Shared Vision of Aviation Safety Conference: “The Current Status & Future of Voluntary Flight Safety Programs.” San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina. Call +1 (856) 667-6770, ext. 163 or see www.aviationsafetyconference.com June 2-3—Hegan Basque Aerospace Cluster’s Aerotrends 2010. Bilbao Exhibition Center, Teruel, Spain. See www.hegan.com/aerotrends June 4-6—Australian and New Zealand Societies of Air Safety Investigators Conference. Lakeside Rydges Hotel, Canberra, Australia. See www.asasi.org/anzsasi.htm
SAS Group CEO Mats Jansson is quoted in “Endangered Species” (AW&ST April 26, p. 41) as saying: “It’s naive to dream about a structural solution if the base is not robust.” This may be backward. Structural network and operating features determine its economic performance. SAS’s structure is its base, as it is for all airlines.
United and Continental airlines have started to form their integration management team, and expect planning for their merger “to begin in earnest” next month. A leadership group comprised of United CFO Kathryn Mikells and Chief Administrative Officer Pete McDonald and Continental CFO Zane Rowe and Chief Marketing Officer Jim Compton, with the carriers’ chief executives, will review recommendations from an Integration Management Office, itself led by McDonald and Continental’s Assistant Counsel Lori Gobillot.
Although cancellations for commercial helicopters are starting to slow, Eurocopter still saw 18 in the first quarter. And while demand is improving over 2008, EADS warns that “commercial appetite is still far below 2007 and 2008 levels.” Deliveries also were down to 86 units from 93. For the first quarter, EADS reports revenue of €9 billion, up from €8.5 billion for the first three months of 2009, and net income of €103 million, down 39% in part because the current hedge position compared to last year’s first quarter has worsened.
European airlines are starting to see their financial situation improve, but face a difficult road back to profitability. The scale of the challenge is illustrated by Air France-KLM, which is forced to dig out from a €1.6-billion ($2-billion) loss in the latest financial year. Moreover, while the underlying economics are improving, a return to profitability is not guaranteed in the near-term.
The Swedish defense ministry is looking to field the AAI Shadow 200 unmanned aircraft by the end of 2011. AAI will serve as a supplier to Saab, which is prime contractor on the 500-million-kronor ($63-million) deal. The contract calls for Saab to deliver two full tactical UAV systems, including the aircraft, ground stations and other equipment. Saab would operate them for the military as part of the company’s plan to grow its services business.
Scaled Composites has pressurized and powered-up Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo from the WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft in flight for the first time. The milestone was achieved on the second captive-carry test flight, which took the vehicle to its planned launch altitude at around 51,000 ft. The 4.7-hr.-long mission also included avionics tests as well as several circuits to provide pilot proficiency training. Virgin Galactic, which named the first spaceship VSS Enterprise, says the test flight program will continue through 2011.
I think it was in Road & Track that someone wrote that automaker Honda was not in the business of making cars but in the business of staying in business. What started as an automobile manufacturer many years ago has diversified out of its core product line. Airlines should be as nimble. Perhaps it is the attachment to our colors on aircraft tails. Growth is always identified with our core business. When I read about the “threat” posed from high-speed trains to China’s airlines (AW&ST April 19, p.
Four F/A-18C Hornet Tactical Operational Flight Trainers (TOFT) provided by L-3 Link Simulation & Training for Switzerland’s F/A-18 Flight Simulator Upgrade program are being readied to enter service one month ahead of schedule. The simulators are equipped with flight program upgrades, a 360-deg. field-of-view visual display and other features that allow joint air-to-air and air-to-ground simulated tactical maneuvers. In addition, the improved TOFTs feature a Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System and night-vision goggles.
Readers Carl Ehrlich and David Ashford assert that spaceplanes are the correct choice for space transportation (AW&ST April 12, p. 8), in a classic case of solutions looking for problems.
Cyber- and electronic weaponry are rapidly moving to the head of the line as operational users of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data. The U.S. Army has grasped the idea that to enable success of digital weapons on the battlefield, ISR must be available to find emitters, identify them, map the networks they operate with and precisely locate the nodes of importance for digital or electronic attack or exploitation.
When NASA discovered water frozen in the dark bottom of a south pole lunar crater last year, it renewed visions of astronauts one day supporting habitats with resources mined from the Moon’s surface. But a computer study of the strange effects the solar wind creates as it blows unimpeded across the Moon raises another vision—one of hundreds of volts of static electricity lurking in potentially resource-rich craters just waiting to zap an astronaut.
The abrupt departure of Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence (DNI) comes after the Senate Intelligence Committee last week lambasted Office of the DNI and intelligence community (IC) shortfalls regarding the attempted Dec. 25, 2009, bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Pressure inside the Beltway to do something different mounted with the recent Times Square bombing attempt. But the resignation also follows an uncertain tenure by Blair, who clashed with CIA director and Democratic stalwart Leon Panetta in ongoing turf disputes.
Cathay Pacific Airways awarded Iberia Maintenance a five-year contract to repair and maintain 49 CFM56-5C engines that power the Asian carrier’s 11 Airbus A340-300s. The carriers are both members of the Oneworld airline alliance. And, China Airlines has selected Lufthansa Technik to provide long-term component support for 18 A330-300s and six A340-300s.
NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis roars off a Kennedy Space Center launch pad on what probably will be its last mission, a 12-day jaunt to deliver Russia’s Rassvet mini-research and docking module to the International Space Station (ISS).
U.S. regional airlines got their moniker many decades ago for serving particular regions of the country. But with many regional carriers now operating throughout the country on short and long routes for major airline partners, some question whether the name still fits. Michael Boyd, the president of Boyd Group International, an aviation consulting, researching and forecasting business that studies the market, calls regional carriers “lift providers.” That name surely would rankle operators as somewhat dismissive. But what are some other options?
Airbus Military and engine consortium Europrop International have backed off a contractual dispute over claim and counter-claim with regard to the development of the TP400-D6 turboprop engine for the A400M military airlifter. Still outstanding is a dispute with Thales, which is believed to focus on the A400M’s flight management system. Separately, contractual talks between A400M customers and EADS to cover cost overruns are moving more slowly than expected.
Airlines are cutting flights to Thailand as political unrest scares off tourists. Japan Airlines says it will halve the number of weekly flights from Osaka and Nagoya to Bangkok next month, and Singapore Airlines plans to cancel more flights this week. Daily operations at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport have fallen to 680 from 750, and the number of tourists arriving into the country has dropped by one-third.
The European Space Agency has initiated a vacuum-test campaign intended to show the ability of a new miniature vegetation camera to withstand the extremes of space operation. The instrument, to be carried by the Belgian-led Proba-V technology demonstrator, will be tasked with viewing vegetation across the globe on a daily basis—a job that for the past 12 years has been handled by Spot 4 and 5 optical imaging spacecraft.
The cabin interior business is showing signs of recovery after a lull caused by delayed aircraft orders and deliveries. “There are signs of an upturn,” says Bob Lange, Airbus head of cabin interiors marketing. The inflight entertainment (IFE) business, in particular, is strengthening. “This has already been a pretty solid year” in terms of activity, says Alan Pellegrini, Thales vice president for IFE business. Thales, in its first-quarter results posted on May 10, said IFE revenue was up 50% year-on-year with new orders “up significantly.”
Laurent Collet-Billon, head of French armaments agency DGA, says the government may take measures, including freezing R&D payments, to force Thales and Safran back to the negotiating table. The two companies earlier this month broke off talks aimed at combining their optronics and other selected electronics businesses when they were unable to agree on terms. DGA says it cannot afford to underwrite R&D programs for two defense electronics contractors.
The Air Transport Association (ATA) is relying on nearly 75 years’ worth of precedent to prevent the National Mediation Board (NMB) from changing how airline unions are certified in the U.S., in a case pitting airline management against unions and NMB members against each other.
In a letter about airline moves to achieve operational cost savings, “The Pitfalls of Saving Money”(AW&ST May 3, p. 10), Karl Kettler says “it is virtually impossible to precisely schedule gate departure/arrival times as well as takeoff/landing times at a major hub airport.”
Honeywell has been using its Boeing 757 testbed to evaluate a Saber low-emissions combustor in an HTF7000 for the Bombardier Challenger 300. Certification trials included inflight starting, inclement weather tests with water ingestion, lean blow-out and snap accelerations and decelerations. This Aviation Week editor observed the latest test flight, which aimed to demonstrate a steady-state performance “health check” and an inflight shutdown and restart.
