A definition of backlog is “an accumulation of unfilled orders on a given day.” For commercial aircraft builders, their suppliers and tens of thousands of workers, “savior” might be a more apt description. Companies will head to the Paris air show in two weeks under the darkest clouds the industry has seen in years. Demand for new jets has all but evaporated. Boeing Co. has managed to win 65 new orders in 2009—but lost another 65, for a net of zero. Airbus isn’t faring much better with 11 net orders.
China will launch about 10 Beidou positioning satellites in 2009 and 2010. Chinese media emphasize that the Beidou (or Compass) constellation will help end the dominance of the U.S. GPS system and, especially, avoid the risk of Chinese military and civilians depending on that foreign service.
Arvind Jadhav (see photo) has become chairman/managing director of the National Aviation Co. of India Ltd. , the holding company for Air India. He was principal secretary of the Infrastructure Development Dept. for the Indian State of Karnataka.
James A. Vedda, Ph.D. (Arlington, Va.), The Aerospace Corp. (Arlington, Va.), Center for Space Policy & Strategy (Arlington, Va.)
Frank Morring, Jr.’s article on the new White House space policy panel led by Norman Augustine (AW&ST May 11, p. 31) may have given the impression that the panel will rubber-stamp current human spaceflight plans, extrapolating from the recommendations of Augustine’s comparable 1990 White House panel.
The British Defense Ministry is looking at the option of further extending the out-of-service date of RAF VC10 tanker-transport aircraft to better fit the delivery of the successor program, the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft. Support for the VC10 fleet now extends through March 2013. The ministry is looking at extending this to either the end of 2013 or through the third quarter of 2014.
Systems engineers for the U.S. Navy are busy installing new software for “enhanced imagery capability” on board the aircraft carriers USS Ronald Reagan and USS Harry S. Truman. “The software upgrade is critical to support near real-time dissemination of intelligence products to fleet users,” says Cristina Zamboni, a Naval Sea Systems Command engineer. The move, mandated by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, came as officials tried to complete installation of the Imagery Exploitation Support System upgrade on available naval assets by the end of May.
The same Florida weather that forced the space shuttle Atlantis to land in California after its successful mission to the Hubble Space Telescope may also delay launch of the next shuttle mission to the International Space Station.
Avio will be glad to leave its 2008 financial performance behind. The Italian engine company suffered a suffered a net loss of €87 million ($121 million) after posting a €35-million profit the prior year, and that is despite a 6.6% year-on-year increase in revenue. But the company’s operating result was also down to €297 million from €303 million the prior year, and the operating profit fell even more significantly—now at €141 million compared with last year’s €297 million.
A small, low-cost vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) launch vehicle being developed for suborbital flights is being tested by Mojave, Calif.-based Masten Space Systems. Designed for quick-turnaround missions, the initial XA-0 1B-750 suborbital vehicle (also dubbed the “Zombie”), forms the basis for a vehicle that could be used to carry scientific and educational payloads before the end of this year, says the company.
This year’s rankings of publicly traded aerospace and defense contractors are the result of a composite scoring of four equally weighted performance categories that place significant emphasis on operating excellence. The four performance categories are:
San Antonio, once home to the Air Intelligence Agency’s cyberwarfare activities, may again be the center of network attack. USAF picked Lackland AFB as the preferred alternative for permanent location of the 24th Air Force. The new headquarters will continue to focus on cybermissions. A final decision awaits completion of an environmental study. Lackland emerged as the top candidate due to its proximity to other operational cybermissions, access to scientific and technical expertise, and available communication and bandwidth capabilities.
Airbus is rolling out technologies to automatically identify components and assemblies as they pass through its complex production system after successful pilot programs validated the business benefits of being able to track parts in real time.
Hainan Airlines will receive a capital injection of 3 billion yuan ($438 million) from the government of its home province and from major shareholder HNA Group. The airline, the listed arm of HNA Group, lost 1.42 billion yuan last year, down from a profit of 627 million yuan in 2007. Other Chinese airlines are receiving government help.
North Korea’s recent test detonation of a nuclear device and another ballistic missile launch “do not, in and of themselves, constitute an imminent threat to our safety and security,” says national security adviser James Jones. The North Koreans “still have a long way to go to weaponize the instrument and also to have a delivery system,” Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, tells a forum sponsored by the Atlantic Council policy group. “Nothing that the North Koreans did surprised us.
Lawmakers, industry and the Pentagon are looking for ways to keep charter airlines a viable part of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) in the post-Iraq and Afghanistan world.
The return of a majority rule by members of the Congress Party is expected to unclog some of the bureaucratic blockages for which India has been more famous than usual during the past five years. In that time, the country has been ruled by a political coalition that needed the support of the Communist Left Party, which was oriented away from Western politics and impeded many of the nation’s military acquisition programs.
Southwest Airlines is delaying the implementation of its planned code-share with Canadian carrier WestJet for at least a year, and might also shift the start of its code-sharing with Mexican carrier Volaris. WestJet was scheduled to become Southwest’s first international code-share partner in the fourth quarter of this year, and Volaris its second in 2010. Southwest says it is delaying its WestJet code-share, probably until “at least” late 2010, because it needs to concentrate its resources on implementing revenue-raising measures with a quicker payoff.
Eurofigher CEO Enzo Casolini believes the aircraft company’s four partner nations will finally sign off on the contract covering the initial batch of Tranche 3 Typhoon fighters, Tranche 3A, by around the end of June. The partner nations are expected, says Casolini, to purchase 112 aircraft initially out of an originally anticipated total of 236 for the Tranche 3 production run. The aim, he suggests, will be to follow the initial order with a Tranche 3B deal 24 months later.
Commercial aircraft ferrying Defense Dept. personnel and cargo into danger zones like Iraq have no need for onboard surface-to-air missile defenses, says the head of U.S. Transportation Command (Transcom).
L-3 Communications will be bringing a company-owned aircraft representative of the USAF MC-12 variant to the upcoming Paris air show. The aircraft, based on a Hawker Beechcraft KingAir 350ER, will be on static display during the show at Le Bourget. L-3 officials see potential for a fair amount of defense business in the small-aircraft market, especially for specialized missions such as ISR collection.
NASA says it will pay $51 million each for seats on Russia’s Soyuz crew vehicle after the space shuttle retires, under a new $306-million contract modification for crew transportation and related services in 2012-13. The price includes training, launch preparation, crew rescue and landing for six International Space Station (ISS) crewmembers.
As the global economic downturn impacts the aerospace industry, Aviation Week & Space Technology’s 13th annual Top-Performing Companies (TPC) Study offers clues on how individual companies are positioned to withstand tough times. The sophisticated metrics used to rank each company’s operational performances show that record backlogs and more efficient operations are shielding the industry, to a degree. Three sets of rankings tables begin on p. 52.
