Headlines blare that the balance of power in building large commercial aircraft has already shifted from Airbus and Boeing: A380s are being deferred, 787 delays are mounting, China and Russia are pushing forward with narrowbodies and Bombardier has its first CSeries customers. But the two incumbent commercial aircraft makers will continue to dominate deliveries for at least the coming decade.
Rolls-Royce is developing a fuel-burn performance improvement package on the Trent 900 designed to keep the Airbus A380 engine competitive in its fiercely contested battle with the Engine Alliance GP7200. “We’re committed to a 1% fuel burn improvement. We’re taking technology from the Trent 1000 and 700EP and putting that into the Trent 900. That technology wasn’t available for the Trent 900 at certification but is part of a package we’ve launched,” says Ian Crawford, Rolls-Royce’s head of Airbus programs.
Pilots—regional and major, current and future—face new training, hiring and flight/duty-time requirements as stakeholders make swift progress on safety initiatives launched in the wake of the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash in February.
India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has lofted a new monitoring satellite and six European experimental spacecraft, marking its 15th straight successful flight. The launch orbited Oceansat-2, a 958-kg. Indian ocean-monitoring spacecraft, and six nano-satellites funded by European universities, including the first indigenous spacecraft to be built by Turkey and Switzerland.
USAF Lt. Gen. Philip M. Breedlove has been appointed deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon. He was commander of the Third Air Force, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein AB, Germany. Brig. Gen. Ronnie D. Hawkins, Jr., has been nominated for promotion to major general. He is deputy director for policy and resources in the Office of War- fighting Integration/chief information officer in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon. Brig. Gen. (select) Kenneth J.
NASA’s Office of Education has selected six universities that serve many minority and under-represented students to establish scientific, engineering and commercial research centers under grants totaling $30 million.
The NTSB determined on Sept. 21 that the inflation of a tail-cone evacuation slide and subsequent binding of elevator control cables probably caused the July 7, 2008, uncommanded pitch-up of the Midwest Airlines MD-80 carrying then-Sen. Barack Obama. As the slide inflated inside the tail cone during Flight 8663’s initial climbout from Chicago, the aircraft pitch exceeded normal limits, according to the NTSB. The captain regained control of the aircraft and diverted the flight to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for a safe landing.
The initial version of the ARJ21 regional jet from the Chinese company AVIC I Commercial Aircraft Co. Ltd. will be the 78-90-seat ARJ21-700. Introduction of a 98-105-seat version is planned. The ARJ21 will be powered by two GE CF34-10A turbofans. The first ARJ21-700 was rolled out in December 2007; initial deliveries will begin in 2010. Three aircraft have been built through 2008. Production of a total of 178 ARJ21s is forecast through 2018. The ARJ21 faces competition from Bombardier, Embraer, Airbus and Boeing.
The British industrial bulldog in the pending battle over spending is growing bigger, but as Mark Twain once quipped: It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
The A340 is a four-engine, intercontinental, wide-body commercial transport aircraft. A prototype flew in October 1991, and deliveries began in January 1993. The A340-200 and -300 were both certificated by the JAA in December 1992 and FAA in February 1993. They are powered by four 31,200-34,000-lb.-thrust CFM International CFM56-5C4 turbofan engines. Deliveries are also under way of two newer models: the longer-range A340-500 and stretched A340-600. Both are powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines.
Sabena Technics has started offering Airbus A320 light and heavy maintenance checks in Kuwait City and is planning to build a hangar there, in conjunction with partner Al Wazzan Group.
This pressurized, single-turboprop-powered, corporate/utility transport aircraft first flew in May 1991, and received Swiss and U.S. certification in 1994. It has seating for nine passengers in its standard layout. Assembly of green aircraft, as well as the manufacture of certain components, is performed by OGMA of Portugal. The current PC-12 production variant is the Next Generation PC-12 (PC-12 NG), a significantly enhanced version powered by the 1,200-shp. Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67P engine. A total of 862 PC-12s were built through 2008.
The U.S. and China are beginning to open lines of communications that could lead to greater cooperation in human spaceflight. This significant move comes as the Obama administration ponders a way forward in space that may include more willingness to work with China in areas that previously were off limits.
FedEx Capt. (ret.) David Wells has won the Air Line Pilots Assn. ’s (ALPA) top safety honor for 2008, the Air Safety Award, “for his work in raising air safety standards, particularly in all-cargo flight operations.” The award recognizes Wells’s work in modernizing flight/duty-time regulations to reflect modern-day flight operations and the latest scientific findings on the role of fatigue on human performance. ALPA presented Superior Airmanship Awards to Compass Airlines Flight 2040 Capt.
The International Assn. of Machinists in Aerospace is asking a U.S. District Court to block Pratt & Whitney from moving jobs in two engine overhaul facilities near Hartford, Conn., to lower-cost plants in Georgia, Singapore and Japan.
The existence of water on the Moon has been imagined, inferred and discussed for decades. But now it has been unequivocally confirmed in an unexpected place—possibly everywhere in the uppermost layer of the lunar surface—and it means a whole new set of challenges for engineers working on methods for future astronauts to extract lunar resources.
The battle lines over aviation and carbon dioxide emissions are sharpening with the approach of a meeting next month that will help prepare the agenda for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. Aviation stakeholders have spent the past few years battling any notion of their business being subsumed under global climate change rules, but a number of carriers and the International Air Transport Assn. (IATA) have recently tried to shape the form of a global agreement.
David A. Fulghum (China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, Calif.)
Even after 60 years of weapons development, scientists, engineers and researchers here regularly return to first principles to calibrate their vision of the tools future warfighters will need.
Telesat’s Nimiq 5 telecommunications satellite is in orbital checkout following its Sept. 17 launch on an International Launch Services (ILS) Proton Breeze M rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. The Khunichev-built rocket launched at 3:19 p.m. EDT. The Breeze M upper stage deployed the 5-ton satellite into geostationary transfer orbit after a 9-hr., 15-min. mission. This was the fifth commercial mission of the year for ILS and the seventh successful Proton launch of 2009.
David A. Fulghum (China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, Calif.)
China Lake—a famously secretive incubator of U.S. Navy Aviation weapons since World War II—has been reinstated as the service’s weapons laboratory in the latest round of facility cuts and mission reshuffling.
Patrick Massicot, ATR business development director, said more than one-third of its fleet is covered by the manufacturer’s Global Maintenance Agreement, which provides MRO on a flight-hour basis. He thinks that percentage won’t surpass 50%.
Georgina Graham has been named director of the Airports Council International bureau in Montreal and Ali Tounsi secretary for the ACI Africa Region, based in Casablanca, Morocco. Graham was an executive at the International Air Transport Assn., while Tounsi was airports operating manager for the Tunisian office of civil aviation. He succeeds Maamoune Chakira, who is now a safety officer for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Nairobi, Kenya.
Long-struggling JAT Airways, Serbia’s national carrier, has drafted a revival plan that includes a potential alliance partnership. In its initiative, recently submitted to the government, the airline states its aim to bring passenger levels to at least 1.5 million a year—a goal JAT says it should be able to accomplish with its existing fleet of 16 aircraft. And to help boost its prospects, management suggests overhauling its schedule, adding destinations, and improving customer service.
