Even if near-term priorities remain the surface-to-air arena, Israeli guided-weapons manufacturer Rafael continues to pursue technologies for the next-generation of air-launched systems. Israel remains broadly on track to deploy the Rafael Iron Dome anti-rocket system by mid-2010, with testing nearly complete. Numerous firings have been carried out, and these have proved “mostly successful,” says a company executive. The program is running slightly later than originally anticipated.
Arlene McKeeman Brown of Boeing in Seattle is among the five members of the Covina, Calif.-based Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering to be named Sampe fellows for 2009. The others are: Takashi Ishikawa, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tokyo; Tia Benson Tolle, Nonmetallic Materials Div. at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; Ignaas Verpoest, Katholieke Universiteit Herverlee, Belgium; and Yichu Yin, Shanghai European-Asia Synthetic Materials Co.
EADS officials hope a new multibillion-dollar turnkey award to build a Saudi border surveillance system will boost efforts to develop a potent homeland security business while lessening the European company’s dependence on Airbus commercial aircraft activity.
Propelled by the Paris air show, Airbus now has a substantial lead on Boeing in the commercial orders game. Airbus has secured 68 net orders (90 gross) through June, compared with Boeing, which has only one net order (85 gross orders offset by 84 cancellations). Airbus also has suffered a string of cancellations, including an Etihad A340-600 last month, but the total for Toulouse is merely 22 order losses year-to-date.
Malaysian Airlines and SITA plan to launch a pilot program this year to explore how to offer passengers better access to booking information using mobile telephone connectivity. The initiative aims to exploit the growth in Smartphone technology. The devices, although a small subset of mobile telephones now in service, represent the highest share of new phone sales.
The Greek defense ministry plans to order Rafael’s Spice air-to-ground bomb this year, and it is expressing interest in the guidance kits for 2,000-lb. Mk 84 and 1,000-lb. Mk 83 weapons. The kits have an electro-optical/infrared seeker for terminal guidance and scene-matching capability. The control surfaces provide the bombs a standoff range of more than 60 km. in certain operational scenarios.
Istanbul-based SunExpress has ordered six Boeing 737-800s that will feature engine, cabin and other improvements that Boeing expects to introduce in 2011. The carrier, a partnership between Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, serves the charter and scheduled services markets with 16 737s that it began flying in 2000. Until now, all but two of them were leased.
Boeing’s 787 is finally moving under its own power, having begun low-speed taxi runs at Everett, Wash., on July 7. Although the revised first-flight target date is still to be determined pending structural modification of the wing root area, Boeing is pressing ahead with ground tests and handling characteristics. Testing on the first aircraft ZA001 began with an initial 15-kt. run, followed by 30 and 60 kt., before a final run down Paine Field’s Runway 16R at just over 100 kt.
July 20-24—UCLA Short Course: “Corrosion of Aging Aircraft.” UCLA Extension Building, Los Angeles. Call +1 (310) 825-3344 or see www3.uclaextension.edu July 21-23—Shephard Group’s UV 2009 Unmanned Vehicles Conference and Exhibition. Celtic Manor Resort, Newport, Wales; and West Wales Airport. Call +44 (175) 372-7019 or see www.shephard.co.uk/events July 22-23—American Conference Institute’s Fourth Annual ITAR Compliance Forum. Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Washington. Call +1 (212) 352-3220 or see www.americanconference.com
Dassault Aviation has delivered the first naval Rafale F3 standard to the French military. The aircraft’s arrival at Mont de Marsan air base marks the initial delivery; another 12 fighters are scheduled to be delivered through 2014. The F3 version is a multirole fighter and will undergo land-based trials before beginning sea trials on the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in September.
Business jet builder Cessna Aircraft Co. has jettisoned nearly half of its workforce since last November, Boeing Co. and Airbus plan to slow down production of 777 and A320 jets, and defense companies face a leveling off of Pentagon spending after eight years of robust growth. These are difficult times for aerospace and defense (A&D)—until you consider the long list of other industries being pulverized by the global economic downturn. Measured against banking, automotive, construction, hospitality or retail, A&D is the picture of good health.
Cynthia Curiel (see photos) has become vice president-communications for the Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. ’s Aerospace Systems sector and Robert T. Hastings, Jr., for the Information Systems Sector. Curiel was deputy director of communications for the former Integrated Systems Sector, while Hastings was principal adviser to the U.S. Defense secretary and deputy secretary for worldwide strategic communications.
This year’s rankings of publicly traded airlines identify those companies that are best positioned to weather the current global recession and recent volatility in fuel prices. Scores represent the composite of five performance categories, placing significant emphasis on financial fitness. The five categories (and their contributions to total score) include:
Kevin J. Purcell has been appointed executive vice president/chief financial officer of the Aerosonic Corp. , Clearwater, Fla. He was vice president/CFO of Herley Industries Inc. and vice president-finance, contracts and compliance at Smiths Aerospace.
In the aftermath of the Colgan 3407 hearings, we should ask how the industry is able to treat such salient issues as fatigue, hiring practices and stall recovery training as if they were epiphanies.
Japan’s F-15J force is “outclassed by the new generation of Chinese fighters” such as the Su-30MKK, says Air Force Gen. (ret.) Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 2001-05. China’s air defenses, including variants of Russian-made SA-10s and SA-20s, can be penetrated only by the fast, high-flying, stealthy F-22 Raptor. Moreover, tensions are growing over Japan’s far-flung island empire—some of it sitting on oil and natural gas fields—that stretches to within 125-150 mi. of China. That’s also the range of the Raptor’s advanced radar compared with the 56-mi.
The airline industry is in precipitous decline—across all regions and categories, from the low-cost carriers to the legacy giants. Even the success stories are doing little more than treading water. This is the stark picture that emerges from Aviation Week’s 2009 Top-Performing Companies study.
Robert Wall (Paris), Darren Shannon (Washington), Andy Compart (Washington)
Carriers from Asia to Europe to North America continue to scramble to bring their business plans in line with bleak financial performance as declines in pricing show little sign of abating. Airlines are pursuing a wide array of measures—slashing budgets, slowing aircraft deliveries, cutting jobs and pressuring labor to renegotiate contracts. The situation has been bleak for months (see p. 44). But the need for further adjustments was reinforced by weak June traffic figures released by airlines in recent days.
A recent Viewpoint (AW&ST June 29, p. 58) proposes that passenger seat miles per gal. (ps/mpg.) would be an ideal metric to gauge fuel efficiency. However, I get the idea that airlines are already quite adept at determining efficiencies, with the rapid acceptance of the Boeing 777-ER and 787 (and even the authors’ mentioning of Southwest’s investment in RNP) very visible indicators that fuel efficiency is paramount.
Thai Airways is signaling that it too may walk away from its Airbus order for six A380s, stating it wants to delay delivery of the aircraft or even convert the commitment to A350-1000s. Under the delivery option, the airline would start taking A380s in 2012. The issues are to be ironed out in September.
A Russian defense ministry special commission is believed to be investigating the crash of a Mil Mi-28N Havoc attack helicopter, likely as the result of hot gas ingestion during weapon firing. The incident is thought to have occurred June 19, but as of last week there had been no official comment. Russian business daily newspaper Kommersant revealed the crash, in which both of the crew were uninjured. The Mi-28N was being flown using the Gorokhovets firing range.
General Electric has initiated first bench tests of the GE38 turboshaft engine it is developing for the U.S. Marine Corps/Sikorsky CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter at the company’s development center in Lynn, Mass. The engine is expected to lower fuel burn by 20% while producing more than 7,500 shp., a jump in current engine outputs that will give the upgraded twin-engine CH-53 better hot-and-high performance and longer range/higher payload potential. The CH-53 series has been powered by GE’s T64 family that produce 3,900-4,300 shp.
