Amid the swirl of budget turmoil and purple rhetoric, the debate continues in Washington regarding F-22 production and just who will operate the Raptors if operational numbers are cut. But Air Force officials both here and in Alaska expect their Air National Guard (ANG) and Air Force Reserve units will take delivery of the world’s only operational stealth fighter as projected.
The first C-17 to carry airline markings has been rolled out at Boeing’s Long Beach, Calif., facility, where final preparations are underway for the delivery of two of the aircraft to Qatar. The aircraft is painted in the livery of Qatar Amiri Flight, which is identical to that of the country’s national airline, Qatar Airways. QA-2 (shown) is the second of a pair due to be delivered, one each this month and next. The first, QA-1, is painted in the standard low-visibility military paint scheme of other C-17s and is destined for the Qatar Emiri Air Force.
Protecting satellites in orbit and international cooperation appear to be among the key issues under consideration in space policy reviews underway at the Pentagon and White House.
Departing Royal Jordanian CEO Samer Majali is leaving the airline by reversing last year’s first half loss of 4 million Jordanian dinars (JD) ($5.6 million) and delivering a JD7.7-million net profit. Royal Jordanian has seen revenue fall to JD274 million from JD314 million in the first half as the airline suffered from declines affecting the entire air transport sector. Majali noted that it was a 19.6% decrease in operational costs during the first six months that allowed the airline to still deliver a profit.
Embraer has broken ground for a plant in Evora, Portugal, that will produce complex composite aerostructures and components, mainly for its new Legacy 450/500 business jets. The €48-million 15,000-sq.-meter facility, set to open by late 2011, will be the corporate center for structural components and the first occupant of the industrial park, which is set up to attract aerospace contractors. Part of the draw is the availability of Portuguese government funding.
Middle East and African carriers have boosted Boeing’s 777 program with a combined 12 orders. Addis Ababa-based Ethiopian Airlines, the first African carrier to opt for the 787 with a request for 10, placed an order for five 777-200LRs with a list-price value of $1.3 billion. The deal also is a boost for General Electric’s GE90-115B engine program. The carrier has been a longtime Boeing customer, buying every aircraft (except the 747) since the 707.
If things go well for EADS in the next few months, the company will have renegotiated the A400M contract so it stops dragging down earnings, figured out how to bring A380 production costs on plan, and convinced French securities regulators to ignore a recommendation to fine the company and some of its executives for perceived market manipulation. It’s a big “if.”
The European Union is sending fire-fighting aircraft to Corsica and Sardinia this summer under a pilot project aimed at stepping up cooperation in combating forest fires. The two Canadair CL-215 twin turboprops are the first units in the EU’s European Forest Fire Tactical Reserve, established last year under a €3.5-million initiative. France oversees the project, but coordination is the task of the European Commission’s Monitoring and Information Center, which handles disaster relief. The undertaking could serve as a basis for a permanent fire-fighting unit.
Six months—that’s the honeymoon period Thales’s new chairman and CEO, Luc Vigneron, is giving himself to figure out how to turn around the big defense contractor, which last week reported the worst first-half result since it was formed out of Thomson a decade ago.
Stronger than expected defense orders and nonaerospace activities are helping Finmeccanica maintain growth targets despite setbacks in commercial aircraft and helicopter markets.
The French air accident investigation bureau (BEA) says Airbus has offered to help pay for a third phase of search operations for wreckage of Air France Flight 447 should that become necessary. Investigators are still looking for the wreckage and the cockpit voice and flight data recorders of the Airbus A330-200 that crashed June 1 in the Atlantic. Search operations are in their second phase, which is expected to run until mid-August. BEA says it will then decide whether to continue the search.
Air Canada, in a series of financing agreements and other transactions with lenders and key stakeholders, has raised C$1billion ($922 million) of new liquidity. President and CEO Calin Rovinescu says the additional financing will provide “breathing room toward achieving sustainable profitability.”
Boeing last week added 13 737-800s orders to its backlog from Panama’s COPA Airlines. The deal includes converted options from previous orders and raises the carrier’s total orders to 27 737-700/800s. Boeing now has 75 orders for 737 for the year; the company’s net for the year is now 17 aircraft.
Pratt & Whitney Canada has opened a regional service center at Lethbridge, Alberta. The facility, co-located with the manufacturer’s PT6A main production plant, has advanced tooling and component repair capabilities. It performs light and heavy maintenance on PT6, JT15D, PW100 and PW500s, and light maintenance for the PW600 engine series.
USAF Lt. Gen. Douglas M. Fraser has been nominated for promotion to general with assignment as commander of Miami-based U.S. Southern Command. He has been deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii. Maj. Gen. Marc E. Rogers has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general with assignment as inspector general of the Air Force, at the Pentagon. He has been vice commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein AB, Germany. Maj. Gen. Larry O.
The head of Russia’s Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, who was responsible for development of the Bulava ballistic missile, has left his job following the latest failure of the submarine-launched weapon. According to Russian press reports, Yury Solomonov resigned immediately after the latest launch failure. More than half of the Bulava firings have proved unsuccessful.
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. has cleared two new Earth observation satellites for a twin launch this week on board a Russian Dnepr booster. The launch, on July 29 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, is expected to orbit Britain’s UK-DMC2 and Spain’s Deimos-1, which are intended to form the nucleus of Surrey’s second-generation disaster-monitoring constellation. The spacecraft, each based on a 100-kg.-class (220-lb.) microsatellite bus, will offer 22-meter-resolution multispectral wide-swath imagery with frequent revisits.
Major European airlines— faced with another period of sustained operating losses—have moved to bolster their liquidity to signal that they can ride out the downturn.
The Swiss government will upgrade its F/A-18Cs with 14 of Raytheon’s Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared pods. The acquisition is part of the nation’s sustainment program for 33 F/A-18C/Ds. Deliveries are scheduled to end in early 2011. In addition, cockpit displays and digital storage capacity will be upgraded, along with identification friend-or-foe equipment, to meet civil ATC management requirements.
Certification of Mistral Engines’ G-300 rotary aircraft engine will be delayed a few months because of a slowdown in business activities aimed at strengthening the company’s financial condition. Mistral this year sought a new round of capital to transition from startup to full production activity, but the result was below expectations. The company’s board has authorized an increase in capital of 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.4 million) to reinforce the balance sheet, and the manufacturer remains fully financed by private equity.
Thales is setting up a facility in Saudi Arabia to support its BOR‑A and Squire ground surveillance radars, which have been selected for several Saudi applications. The facility will provide technical support, maintenance, training and final assembly.
NASA engineers and astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute expect to release first images from the upgraded Hubble Space Telescope in September, despite a malfunction with a key piece of hardware last month that has not recurred. The Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit (SIC&DH) is working normally after an electronic malfunction June 15, NASA says.
MTU Aero Engines’ net profit fell more than 30% in the first six months of the year owing to higher research and development expenses and weakness in its engine sales business. MTU reached a net profit of €55.7 million ($78.5 million) on €1.38 billion in sales. Revenues were up 10%, but that was largely due to a stronger U.S. dollar. Otherwise, sales would have been down 2%.
