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.
USN Capt. (ret.) G. R. Allender (Severna Park, Md.)
Regarding the News Break item “Navy Eyes Sub-Tracking UAV” (AW&ST Aug. 10, p. 19), I wonder, does this unmanned aerial vehicle represent an attempt to help bring the range and endurance of the P-8 more inline with those of the P-3? As to the “Navy’s high-altitude antisubmarine warfare concept being developed,” P-3Cs were tracking submarines on a regular basis from 30,000+ ft. in the early 1970s. Additionally, what weapons/tactics are proposed to attack the target without descending to low altitude?
Hartmut Mehdorn has become a non-executive member of the board of directors of Air Berlin . He succeeds Claus Wulfers. Mehdorn was CEO of Deutsche Bahn and a member of the board of the then-Deutsche Aerospace.
The FAA introduced Wide-Area Multilateration (WAM) systems at four Colorado mountain airports to provide air traffic controllers with a means to track aircraft in areas where no radar coverage is possible. The FAA and Colorado Transportation Dept. are sharing the cost of the system deployed earlier this month at Yampa Valley-Hayden, Craig-Moffat, Steamboat Springs and Garfield County Regional-Rifle airports. With the WAM system, small sensors are deployed in remote areas. These sensors emit signals that are returned by aircraft transponders.
I agree with Manfred A. Runkel, in his letter “747 Was the Mold-Breaker” (AW&ST Aug. 10, p. 8), that the Boeing 747 took considerably less time to develop, compared to the 787. It’s easy to say the same common phrase of “look what was done with a slide rule . . . ,” etc., but the comparison may be a bit unfair.
Companies using business aviation outperform non-users “across every key financial and non-financial measure of business success,” according to findings of a NEXA Capital Partners Study. For example, users’ annual revenue growth (on a market-cap-weighted basis) was 116% higher, and average annual earnings growth was 434% higher compared to nonusers. The findings were based on how companies included in Standard & Poor’s 500 performed in revenue and profit growth and asset efficiency from 2003-08, and from researchers’ interviews with executives.
The A318 is a twin-engine, 107-129-passenger narrow-body jetliner. Initial flight occurred in January 2002. In May 2003, the A318 (with CFM56 engines) was certificated by the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) and by the FAA in June. Deliveries began in July 2003. Through 2008, Airbus produced 66 A318s. The A318 is powered by two 21,600-23,800-lb.-thrust turbofan engines, either the Pratt & Whitney PW6000 or CFM International CFM56-5B. Primary competition includes the Embraer 190 and 195 and the Bombardier CSeries.
The global market for antiship missiles is worth $7 billion through 2018 and will involve the production of nearly 12,000 weapons, according to Forecast International. European missile manufacturer MBDA could make more money than Boeing, around $724 million. A tight budget and other problems have prompted the U.S. Navy to drop plans to purchase the Harpoon III antiship missile, Forecast analysts say, calling the blow significant to the marketplace, but not fatal. The antiship missile market is in transition, according to senior military analyst Larry Dickerson.
SES has become the latest satellite operator to enter the booming maritime mobile satellite service (MSS) market. SES said last week it has begun to offer MSS capacity to commercial ships and yachts in the North and Baltic Seas and the northern Mediteranean through its Astra2Connect interactive broadband service. The operator also struck deals with KNS Inc. to develop stabilized antennas for maritime use and with U.K.-based H2OSatellite to distribute the service in Europe.
Boeing says all six of its flight-test 787 aircraft are now off the final assembly line in Everett, Wash., and either in or preparing for wing modifications necessary for flight tests to begin in the fourth quarter. Furthest along in the retrofits are ZA001, the initial test aircraft, and ZY0997, the static test airframe. Workers have begun installing the wing reinforcements at the stringer attachments along the side-of-body join on both. As it has previously done, Boeing is using the Everett paint hangar for this post-assembly work for ZA001.
These models, along with the A318, make up Airbus’ A320 family of twin-turbofan, narrowbody airliners. The initial model in the series was the A320, which made its first flight in February 1987. A320 deliveries began in 1988. Initial deliveries of the stretched A321 occurred in 1994. Deliveries of the A319, a shortened variant of the A320, began in 1996. All models are available with a choice of either a CFM International CFM56 variant or International Aero Engines V2500 engines. The A319 typically seats 124 passengers, the A320 carries 150, and the A321 seats 185.
AsiaSat 5 has begun commercial service operations at 100.5 deg. E. Long. following its in-orbit checkout after an Aug. 12 flight on an International Launch Services Proton from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Space Systems/Loral 1300 satellite, with 26 C-band and 14 Ku-band transponders, is taking over pan-Asian services currently provided by the 13-year-old AsiaSat 2 from the same location. The traffic transfer is to be completed in a few weeks, says Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommunications.
RUAG Aerospace launched this updated variant of the Dornier 228 turboprop regional transport in 2007, with 776-shp. TPE331-10 engines. Other improvements include a new glass cockpit, avionics by Rockwell Collins and five-blade MT props. The new version also includes aerodynamic improvements to the wing to boost short-field performance. First deliveries are expected in 2010, with 54 aircraft forecast for production during the next 10 years.
