Comac has begun building the final-assembly plant that is expected to become the main manufacturing base of China’s challenger to Airbus and Boeing. The plant is due to open in 2012 and to begin making the 156-seat C919 airliner in the following year. It will also build ARJ21 regional jets, currently made in the Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Factory, which Comac inherited in 2008. The new plant, in the Pudong district, should be able to build 20 C919s and 50 ARJ21s per year.
Dennis Walsh (see photo) has become vice president of business development for Chromalloy , Orangeburg, N.Y. He was general manager of GE Dallas On Wing Support.
Sikorsky has launched production of its S-76D intermediate twin-turbine helicopter, at an initial rate of one a month, with deliveries planned to begin in 2011. The fuselage for the first aircraft has entered final assembly at supplier Aero Vodochody in the Czech Republic and is planned for delivery to Sikorsky Global Helicopters’ plant in Pennsylvania in April for completion. The company last month delivered the first two S-434 light single-turbine helicopters to Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry.
Toulouse-based regional aircraft maker ATR has opened a logistics support center in Kuala Lumpur to serve its Asia-Pacific region operators. The center will be managed by DHL Supply Chain. ATR also has logistics support centers in Paris, Miami, Auckland and Singapore. “Close to 90 ATR aircraft are operated by airlines of Southeast Asia, a region where we have experienced strong growth during the last few years,” says Jean-Pierre Cousserans, ATR’s senior vice president of customer services.
The world’s airlines saw passenger traffic on international routes rise 2.1% in November from the same period a year earlier and cargo volume increase 9.5%, according to the International Air Transport Assn. It was the first time in 18 months that international passenger and cargo traffic improved simultaneously. While most regions saw year-on-year growth in traffic, carriers in Europe and North America were both down by 3%. Airlines in the Asia-Pacific region recorded 5.1% growth in international traffic, with Latin America up 8.2% and the Middle East improving 16.5%.
A disparate group of engineers and iconoclasts shook up the world of space in 2009 (see p. 46). One of these new space entrepreneurs, Dave Masten, poses in a hangar at Mojave Air and Space Port, Calif. Masten Space Systems won more than $1 million in U.S. federal Centennial Challenge prize money for demonstrating a lunar lander prototype. Aviation Week photo by Chad Slattery.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not blow a hole in an airplane on Dec. 25, but he certainly blew a hole in the confidence many have had for aviation security. That the accused bomber failed was only the result of difficulties in igniting explosives, the bravery of a passenger and the response of the crew.
Nearly half of the noise complaints received during October at Chicago O’Hare International Airport stemmed from 145 people who live in the suburb of Park Ridge. They telephoned 712 times to protest noise, mostly about low-flying aircraft. In all, 1,514 complaints were received during October, the most recent period for which there are tallies. Through the 10-month period, all complaints totaled 12,968, five times higher than the same span in 2008.
The U.S. Army and Marine Corps awarded AeroVironment a $23.9-million contract modification for Raven UAV upgrade kits. The contract covers an upgrade for existing analog Raven systems to a digital data link. Full funding for the contract modification was provided by a Defense Dept. supplemental funding bill and has a potential value of $66.6 million. Of that, $42.7 million has not been funded yet, but has been added to the maximum potential value of the contract supporting this program.
There is no question that airfreight operators in Europe have seen a notable improvement in the business environment in recent weeks, but opinions are split on whether the trend is sustainable.
Rocket and other indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip on Israeli territory were down 90% last year from 2008 levels, the Israeli military says in arguing that Operation Cast Lead—the December 2008/January 2009 military operation in Gaza—led to concrete results. Through Dec. 16, the Israel Defense Forces say 149 rockets, 95 mortar shells and four Grad rockets were fired at Israel last year. The numbers do not include the launches during the 22 days of Operation Cast Lead, so the real number is higher.
Taiwan is paying $1.1 billion for four new U.S. Patriot air and missile defense systems, adding to the units it has already procured and is upgrading. Patriot prime contractor Raytheon has been pushing for more sales in Asia and the Middle East, including a sale recently to the United Arab Emirates. According to the company, the initial contract with Taiwan is worth $956.6 million, with a deal for spares valued at $134.4 million.
NASA has chosen three proposals as candidates for its next New Horizons mission, with final selection planned for mid-2011. The mission is due for launch by the end of 2018 at a cost, excluding liftoff, limited to $650 million.
Planetary scientists using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) are taking advantage of the relatively dust-free springtime atmosphere over the Red Planet’s northern hemisphere to resume terrain observations after a four-month shutdown triggered by a recurrent software problem. Controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) last month restarted the orbiter, which had been in a safe mode since it spontaneously reset its computer on Aug. 26.
Irkut says the Yak-130 combat trainer completed state tests last month, clearing the fly-by-wire twinjet for operation with the air force. Irkut is delivering aircraft against an initial order for 12, and says it has an export order for 16 from Algeria.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking a third party willing to make available a spacecraft to participate in the planned 2013 on-orbit demonstration of a fractionated satellite network. Darpa’s System F6 program is developing the capability to network a cluster of free-flying satellites so they can wirelessly share resources such as processing, data storage, sensors, communications relay and navigation to replicate the capability of a single larger spacecraft.
New U.S. Transportation Dept. “passenger protection” rules, effective in four months, mandate that U.S. carriers allow passengers to deplane from aircraft stuck on the tarmac after 3 hr. for a domestic flight, with exceptions only for safety and security, or if air traffic control decides doing so would “significantly disrupt airport operations.” Airlines could face fines as high as $27,500 per passenger for violations. The time limit is considered a major victory for passenger rights advocates, who pushed for one for years, but a major defeat for U.S.
Russia hopes to complete the conceptual design of its next-generation, stealthy long-range bomber within the next two years as the country bolsters efforts to revitalize its air-combat capabilities. The Russian air force aims to introduce a successor to the Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack, Tu-95 Bear and Tu-22M3 Backfire in about 2025-30, says strategic aviation commander Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev. The new bomber program is known as PAK-DA (Prespektivniy aviatitzionniy kompleks dalney aviatzii, or future aviation complex for long-range aviation).
Brussels Airlines hopes it can establish its home base as Star Alliance’s hub in Western Europe and become the alliance’s primary airline serving Africa.
Thailand’s forced return of Hmong refugees to Laos is being criticized on Capitol Hill, with one leading lawmaker threatening to curb long-running U.S.-Thai military relations. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign operations, warns that mistreatment of the Hmong “could badly damage the Thai military’s reputation and put our military collaboration at risk.” Many Lao Hmong fought alongside the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, and some have been resettled in the U.S. since then.
Dear Reader: As we begin 2010—following one of the aerospace and defense industry’s most challenging years in recent times—Aviation Week & Space Technology has been developing a road map for its future.
Vietnam plans to buy eight Sukhoi Su-30MK2 fighters and six Project 636 submarines from Russia, according to the country’s prime minister. Interfax news agency said a further 12 of the Sukhois might be ordered.
The review of combat air forces is just one of several changes Congress is making to the Obama administration’s Fiscal 2010 spending plan. The defense appropriations bill includes earmarks for $465 million in unrequested funds to continue the Joint Strike Fighter’s F-136 General Electric/Rolls-Royce alternative engine program and $2.5 billion for 10 more Boeing C-17s. Early this year, The White House called such programs wasteful, as it did numerous other defense programs, but President Barack Obama is still expected to sign the $636.3-billion bill.
The U.S. Air Transport Assn. (ATA) and three of its biggest member airlines are trying to carve an exclusion for international aviation out of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme for 2010. As the United Nations held climate-change talks in Copenhagen, the ATA, Continental, United and American filed a lawsuit in London Dec. 16 against the U.K.’s secretary of state for energy and climate change. The airlines argue that the trading scheme violates international law and the U.S.-EU open-skies agreement.
U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials say a flight computer anomaly in an air-launched target is at the root of a recently aborted flight test of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system. The intercept attempt was to take place in mid-December, and began with deployment of the Coleman Aerospace air-launched target from a C-17. But the target’s rocket motor failed to ignite, and the weapon plummeted into the ocean.
