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.
The European Commission, signaling its stronger insistence that European governments make defense equipment purchases more competitive, is concerned about how the Czech government acquired a new fleet of tactical transports. The European Union has been pushing members to step away from sole-source contracts and open military procurement processes more widely to avoid wasting public funds. Last year, a new directive became effective to bring about more transparency in the arms purchases of EU member states.
Sagem next month plans to commence unmanned trials of its Patroller unmanned aircraft after wrapping up a third flight-test series in a manned configuration. The latest round of trials conducted by the Safran defense business unfolded April 22-30 near Paris and examined the triple-redundant avionics, the in-house Euroflir imaging system that was ground-controlled and Ka-band datalink. Sagem also says the Patroller carried external fuel tanks for the first time.
Aerospace-friendly Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Kit Bond (R-Mo.) launch the Senate Aerospace Caucus—with the help of Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Textron CEO/President Scott Donnelly, who is also chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) trade group. The caucus’ inaugural luncheon May 6 on Capitol Hill focused on defense industrial base issues, acquisition reform and workforce needs. “We know what happens to an industry in our country when it does not have a plan for the future. The U.S.
The NTSB last week launched an investigation of an April 28 near-collision involving a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 and a Bell 207 news helicopter at Houston Hobby Airport. The two aircraft were departing from different airport areas, when the helicopter converged on the 737’s flight path, coming within an estimated 125 ft. vertically and 100 ft. laterally. It was the second near-collision involving a Southwest aircraft in nine days.
Boeing Business Jets (BBJ) President Steve Taylor says the large aircraft completion business is in danger of being maxed out by the number of twin-aisle VIP conversions that will be needed beginning in 2011. The number of Boeing 787 and 747 conversions under contract, plus those for the Airbus A330, A340 and A350, will require a “huge amount of capacity,” he says. Boeing is already lining up new potential completion centers to meet that need, including Comlux America, New Zealand’s Altitude Aerospace Industries, Baysys International and L-3 VIP Head of State Interiors.
According to Claudio Camelier, vice president for market intelligence for Embraer Executive Aviation, the company has firm orders for more than 600 Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 light jets, approximately two-thirds of which are for the 100. The orders come from 44 countries. This year, the company plans to deliver 120 Phenoms.
Five years ago, regional jet pioneer Bombardier Aerospace was desperately seeking a comeback. Soaring fuel prices had made its 50-seat RJs uneconomical to operate. Rival Embraer was rolling out a family of newer and more spacious “E-Jets” in the 70-120-seat market. And the Canadian airframer’s proposal to move upmarket with an uninspiring new family of larger jets dubbed the “CSeries” was widely panned by analysts and investors.
Operations in Afghanistan are demanding several new, small and sophisticated aircraft designs that will carry packages of sensors to pit the U.S. Army’s exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum against the Taliban’s tactical flexibility.
Trying to rally world support toward nuclear arms proliferation, State and Defense department officials reveal that the U.S. had 5,113 strategic warheads in its nuclear weapons stockpile as of Sept. 30, 2009—down 84% from levels in Fiscal 1967, when the nuclear arsenal peaked at 31,255 warheads. Meanwhile, the number of non-strategic nuclear weapons in the arsenal dropped about 90% from September 1991 to September 2009.
Swiss Private Jet, a Lufthansa group unit set up in 2009, plans to expand its fleet of 10 small bizjets to include the Challenger 605 or Dassault Falcon 2000 class and perhaps beyond to Boeing Business Jet or VVIP widebodies, says CEO Peter Koch. First acquisitions are expected in a few months. The company plans a fleet of 25-30 aircraft within five years.
EADS CASA has delivered the first of three C-295 tactical transports to the Chilean navy for maritime patrol. The Finnish government is adding another C-295M, augmenting two of the tactical transports delivered in 2007-08. The additional aircraft is to be delivered in 2013.
Data from the first test of the pad-abort system for NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle should help make U.S. astronauts safer, regardless of which vehicle they ride to orbit after the space shuttle fleet retires (see p. 43). The May 6 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., validated the integrated performance of the Alliant Techsystems abort and attitude-control motors, the Aerojet jettison motor and the Honeywell avionics that delivered onboard sequencing and inertial navigation for the solid-fuel system.
If Europe finally manages to effectively streamline its air traffic management system after years of trying, the credit will likely go to the Eyjafjallajokull volcano for spotlighting the high cost of the fractured arrangement now in place.
