De-hubbed U.S. airports are using every trick in the book to restore air service. More than a few are on the rebound. Common keys to a turnaround are strong relationships with airline personnel, bolstered by community support. To persuade a reluctant carrier to take a risk on a route, financial incentives and marketing deals are being offered. But by far, the biggest draw to new service remains a route’s potential for reliable profits, airport officials say.
Emirates is looking to further grow its profitability this year, having managed to close the last financial year $964 million in the black despite a deep global recession that hit its home market of Dubai particularly severely.
Opportunity, the Mars Exploration Rover that spent two years probing a small crater named Victoria, is beginning a multi-year journey to a much larger feature visible on the horizon at left in this April 28 image collected with the rover’s panchromatic camera. Known as Endeavour, the crater is 13 mi. in diameter. That is 25 times larger than Victoria. The route is not as rough as it appears—the dunes in the foreground are only 8 in. tall—but rover-drivers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are not taking any chances traversing the 8 mi.
Airbus is delaying its key A320 reengining decision until year-end as it rescopes its new engine option (NEO) initiative into a broader strategy aimed at repelling emerging competition from Bombardier’s CSeries and other new-generation airliners, as well as gaining a lead over Boeing’s 737.
The organizational framework for planning and launching U.S. cyber-attacks and defending military networks now appears to be complete, but many unknowns remain about conducting and approving them. These murky details have hindered the operational use of cyber-weapons for 20 years, beginning with planning for the war with Iraq in 1990.
Thales’s financial woes (see p. 11) could be worsened by a €630-million ($794-million) penalty handed down by an international arbitration court for breach of terms in a 1991 contract for the supply of six frigates to Taiwan by Thomson-CSF, Thales’s predecessor company. Thales would have to pay 27.5%. The company says it will appeal.
The drive for reform that won U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recognition as Aviation Week’s 2009 Person of the Year for his impact on aerospace is becoming a crusade to make reshaping the Pentagon a national imperative (see p. 25). Most recently, he warned of the U.S.’s “tendency to disarm in the wake of major wars,” reminding everyone that politicians will desert defense for other priorities once the hot war is over. He cautioned that fiscal realities will blunt the military’s “tooth” if the Pentagon cannot trim its “tail.”
EADS has joined with Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research to provide cyber-security training in the United Arab Emirates. The alliance, which also includes UAE-based C4 Advanced Solutions, teaches such skills as protecting computer Internet accounts and files. The partners hope to create a Cyber Operations Center of Excellence focused on keeping brick and mortar infrastructures safe, as well as critical information infrastructures.
The FAA on May 13 proposed a $325,000 civil penalty against Continental Airlines for allegedly operating a Boeing 737 at least 12 times with an improperly maintained right main landing gear. An abnormal gear indication first appeared on a Dec. 20, 2008, flight. The FAA alleges the airline’s maintenance staff did not make the required notation in records about the abnormal gear indication.
Airbus is talking to CFM International about a modified variant of the “BE” CFM56 engine upgrade for the A320, which is aimed at maintenance cost savings after failing to provide any clear-cut fuel saving benefit. Although CFMI says tests of the -7BE variant in development for the Boeing 737 indicate 1.6% savings in fuel consumption, Andrew Shankland, Airbus vice president for marketing, says: “. . .
U.S. lawmakers warn a looming aircraft shortfall will strip aircraft from the decks of several aircraft carriers. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), the top Republican on the Armed Services subcommittee on seapower and expeditionary forces, says that although the JSF program is in a breach of Nunn-McCurdy cost-overrun limits, there is hope for a marked improvement in the program. But even if it does meet schedule and cost, “the shortfall . . . is at best more than two carriers worth of aircraft,” Akin says.
Concerns over emissions calculations that prompted business aviation interests to threaten to withdraw from the European Union’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) seem to be ebbing. At a May meeting of Eurocontrol’s Provisional Commission, all members save Ukraine agreed to develop a tool for calculating emissions based on flight plan data that also provides verification.
Budget pressures in Russia are seriously hampering efforts to revive the country’s airport infrastructure and are damaging the economic potential of terminal upgrades that have benefited from outside capital. The industry finds itself in a Catch 22 situation—government coffers are all but empty; private operators and regional authorities would like to develop the infrastructure, but federal laws bar the privatization of airports, so the main source of maintaining the runways, taxiways, aprons and lighting system is the state budget.
Retirements of legacy aircraft, which were maintained at Air Force depots, are inching the service closer to breaching a law that requires at least 50% of repair work be handled in government facilities. Adherence to the so-called 50/50 rule is closely watched by lawmakers, who want to protect maintenance jobs in their districts. The Air Force waived observance of the law under Secretary F. Whitten Peters after two of its depots fell victim to base closure plans. Though close to a breach, Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen.
House Defense authorizers are undeterred by a threat from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to veto their Fiscal 2011 defense legislation if they opt to fund the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136 engine for the stealthy F-35 fighter. In their markup last week, lawmakers set aside $485 million for the alternate engine; Pratt & Whitney is building its F135 as the primary propulsion system. Gates “stands ready to recommend a veto should the final legislation contain any money for the extra engine,” says Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary.
Philippe Lugherini (see photo) has been named CEO of France-based Cilas , a subsidiary of EADS and Areva. He also will be CEO of EADS Astrium Space Transportation subsidiary Nucletudes.
With British Airways cabin crew workers slated to halt work this week as part of renewed strike action, the airline says it expects to operate more than 60% of long-haul flights and in excess of half its short-haul schedule. As it did in March, when the Unite union carried out two work stoppages, BA has struck agreements with other airlines to transport its passengers and lease their aircraft. For the May 18-22 strike period, BA plans to lease eight aircraft to operate flights that otherwise would be canceled.
The final attendance tally for the annual EBACE, held in Geneva May 4-6, was 11,174, besting the previous year’s by 257 people and establishing it as the third-best draw in the event’s 10-year history.
Roy Tharpe, who is president of the Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Space Gateway Support contract for interim protective services for security, fire and emergency management, has received the Dr. Kurt H. Debus Award from the National Space Club Florida Committee . The award, which is named for the Kennedy Space Center’s first director, recognizes achievements and contributions in Florida to American aerospace efforts.
China could send its first female astronaut into space in as little as two years, after including two women among its new class of seven military pilots selected for spaceflight training. The women—both military transport pilots selected from among 15 female candidates—will join five male fighter pilots for 2-3 years of training in the Shenzhou spacecraft that already has taken six of their countrymen into orbit. The new astronaut class members all have an average flight time of 1,207.7 hr., according to Chinese press reports.
Jim Noonan (see photo) has been named vice president-business operations for the Hawker Beechcraft Corp. , Wichita, Kan. He was vice president-sales operations for StandardAero.
By 2035, three decades after the Concorde was retired, demand and technology could come together to make economically and technically viable a supersonic airliner with 100+ seats. But substantial new technology will be needed to ensure such an aircraft meets sonic boom, noise and emissions requirements.
Michael Sheehan (see photo) has been appointed president/CEO of Thales Communications Inc. , Clarksburg, Md. He succeeds Mitch Herbets, who will be retiring. Sheehan was a senior executive with Cobham’s avionics business. Honors and Elections
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from states with Boeing work is proposing a Fair Defense Competition Act that would require the Pentagon to apply penalties to EADS North America’s latest bid for $35-billion worth of work building aerial refuelers for the U.S. Air Force. The proposal, spearheaded by Kansas sons Sen. Sam Brownback (R) and Rep.
Regarding Dale L. Jensen’s letter concerning the “inefficient” performance of SSME and RS-68 (AW&ST April 19, p. 8)—he believes erroneously that specific impulse (ISP) is a measure of energy available. Actually, it is a measure of how much the potential energy of propellants has been transformed into kinetic energy of exhaust gases, which depends on expansion ratio (pressure ratio). Thermodynamic efficiency is maximum when nozzle exit pressure matches outside pressure. In boosters and main engines, expansion is limited by (high) outside pressure.
