According to the latest Transportation Dept. Air Travel Consumer Report, 14 of the 21 flights that had tarmac delays of 4 hr. or more in March were all operated by Delta Air Lines from Atlanta. The nine flights with the most minutes on the tarmac were all Delta, ranging from just under 5 hr. to 5 hr., 45 min. The only Continental Airlines flight to make the list was also out of Atlanta, as was one of US Airways’ two flights on the list. No Delta flights had tarmac delays of 4 hr. or more in January or February. The Transportation Dept.
AgustaWestland will deliver the first of 16 Boeing ICH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to the Italian army in 2013 under an almost €900-million contract signed on May 13. The contract includes an initial five years of logistical support and an option for an additional four helicopters. AgustaWestland will establish a final assembly line in Vergiate, near Milan, to which Boeing will provide fuselages and will be responsible for sales and production of CH-47s for Europe, including the U.K., as well as Egypt, Libya and Morocco.
Last year’s spike in oil prices has prompted some airlines to park Bombardier CRJ200 regional jets as they move to cut capacity and utilize aircraft with better fuel efficiency. Three companies are giving some of those CRJs a new life by converting them to business aviation use.
June 4—Business Aviation Security. Rosslyn, Va. June 10—Webinar: Capitalizing on Raw Material Aggregation. July 16—Demonstrating the Value of Corporate Aircraft Management Forum. New York. Aug. 5-6—Required Navigation Performance Management Forum. Dallas. Aug. 12-13—Program Risk Management Forum. Washington. Sept. 22—Green Europe. Hamburg, Germany. Sept. 22-24—MRO Europe Conference & Exhibition. Hamburg. Oct. 6-7—Human Capital and Talent Acquisition/Labor Management Forum. Chicago.
Thales says “the deteriorating economic environment is starting to impact certain businesses.” In particular, the company is experiencing financing problems for commercial space constellations—Thales Alenia Space is the supplier for Globalstar 2 and O3B—and the slowdown in commercial aerospace is reverberating through the company. Thales also says its first-half avionics earnings will be hit by cost overruns on several programs it would not identify. Thales has been affected by development problems on the A400M military airlifter and NH90 rotorcraft.
The production decrease at Airbus is not expected to have a major impact on aerostructures supplier Latecoere, but the company says it has been surprised by the rapid slowdown at Embraer and Dassault Aviation. As a result, Latecoere has revised its full-year guidance, with an expectation of a 20% revenue decline over 2008. But the supplier notes it has now secured A350 workshare that exceeds what it has secured on the A330.
The aerospace industry is being asked to propose concepts for reusable launch vehicles to meet a range of Defense Dept. requirements from suborbital flights to heavy-lift missions. The Reusable Booster System (RBS) request for information from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is a step toward the possible X-plane flight demonstration of a lower-cost, more-responsive launch vehicle combining a reusable rocket-powered first stage and expendable upper stage.
The European Space Agency will name four new astronauts on May 20 in Paris. The astronauts, intended to help meet manning requirements for the International Space Station after it transitions to a full six-person crew this summer, will enter a basic training cycle that will end in 2011.
Northrop Grumman is in the initial phases of production of the Navy’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft. A Defense Acquisition Board meeting to approve low-rate initial production scheduled for March was delayed but is expected soon, says Capt. Shane Gahagan, Hawkeye program manager for the Navy. To date, two development aircraft have executed more than 327 flights totaling about 1,000 hr. in the air and 600 hr. of APY‑9 radar operations. The first of three pilot production aircraft is to be delivered next year.
Am I correct in assuming that you think that general aviation is chopped liver? According to a recent editorial (AW&ST Apr. 6, p. 50) the following appear to be your stance: General aviation is not a stakeholder in NextGen, general aviation is inconsequential, general aviation’s interests are nothing when compared with commercial aviation’s. In short, general aviation does not deserve a seat at the table.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the slot auctions proposed as a way to manage congestion at the New York-area airports will be canceled, thus ending a contentious legacy of the Bush administration (AW&ST May 11, p. 32). “We’re still serious about tackling aviation congestion in the New York region,” says LaHood, promising to work with stakeholders in creating a new plan. Last year’s slot auction proposal caused a near revolt by airlines and airports.
Snecma says there is growing interest in developing an engine based on Silvercrest now that analysis of test results from core engine demonstrator bench-testing is complete. In fact, Snecma executives suggest Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney might have avoided some problems with their new bizjet engines if they had included a risk-reduction phase. This is admittedly expensive—the demo cost €100 million ($136 million). Active discussions for at least three airframe projects are ongoing, and the company can have an engine ready by 2013, the Snecma executives say.
Honeywell will test a variable-speed auxiliary power unit as part of a raft of emerging technologies aimed at reducing fuel burn, noise and exhaust emissions for both current and future generations of APUs.
Upgrades for the French Rafale strike fighter are now gaining steam as the military and industrial team looks to deliver a more capable aircraft around 2012. The development activities span the range of sensors and subsystems, although there are no major changes planned to the baseline F3 standard aircraft.
The business jet community is up in arms over what it regards as an unfair emissions trading scheme for the industry in Europe, and it is scurrying to make sure a similar setup planned for the U.S. is more to its liking.
The new Node 3 pressurized connecting module for the International Space Station was to be shipped to Kennedy Space Center May 17, following a ceremony at the Turin plant of prime contractor Thales Alenia Space. The node is being supplied by the European Space Agency under a barter agreement with NASA, and will be officially transferred to the U.S. agency in September. Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to deliver Node 3—named Tranquility—to the ISS on the STS-130 mission in February 2010, along with the European-built cupola that will connect to it.
Russian Space Agency Roscosmos plans to charge NASA $51 million a seat for rides to the International Space Station after the current contract expires in the spring of 2012. That would be an increase over the $47 million negotiated last year in the first contract extension (AW&ST Dec. 8, 2008, p. 22). Anatoly Perminov, the head of Roscosmos, told Russian reporters in Moscow the increase would be driven by inflation. A NASA official said negotiations are still ongoing for the contract, which will allow U.S.
Aerion Corp., which is still looking for a manufacturing partner to develop, certify and build its supersonic business jet design, is not getting an eager reception among the established makers of bizjets.
Traffic in its home market is down 70%, the country is on the brink of bankruptcy, and the worst is yet to come. Nevertheless, AirBaltic expects to deliver a profit this year after having completely overhauled its business focus.
Bill M. Williams has been named vice president-materials for Gulfstream Aerospace , Savannah, Ga. He was vice president-product support materials. Williams succeeds Jim McQueeney, who has retired. Robby Harless has been named vice president/general manager of Gulfstream’s Dallas facility. He was general manager of the Brunswick, Ga., completions center and has been succeeded by Ron Aldrich. Vince Ruscitti has become director of service center operations of both Gulfstream and General Dynamics Aviation Services facilities at Dallas.
Republic Airlines, operating as US Airways Express, flies the 400th E-Jet delivered by Embraer: a 175 that can seat 78-88 passengers. Regional airlines are shifting to larger aircraft such as Embraer’s E-Jet series to adapt to a changing market (see p. 46), and regional jets of 70 seats or more now constitute about 60% of the Republic Airways Holdings fleet. Embraer photo.
The U.K.’s London Stansted and Manchester airports have installed facial-recognition gates in which passport photographs are compared with scans of passengers’ faces. Any British or European citizen who carries an e-passport may use the gates. The facial recognition system is on trial at Stansted through October. It takes only seconds to scan a face against a passport photo, according to the U.K. Border Agency. Similar technology will be installed at 10 U.K.
Aerojet has shipped the first solid-fueled jettison motor for NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle to the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, N.M., for the Pad Abort-1 test that could come as early as August. The jettison motor is one of three used in the event of a launch abort at altitudes up to 300,000 ft. ATK makes the other two motors: one for the abort itself and a second to control the vehicle’s attitude. In an emergency, those two are to separate and maintain control of the Orion crew capsule from the Ares-I launcher.
The Royal Australian Navy is likely to move this year to replace its combat helicopter force, and must decide whether it wants commonality with the Australian Army or the U.S. Navy.
USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says early indications from the latest Mobility Capability Requirements Study underway at the Pentagon point to no need for additional C-17 airlifters. A recent turnaround in the C-5 reengining program is allowing officials to put more reliance in that fleet, and it is likely if more airlift is needed that the Pentagon will reengine the C-5A fleet or contract for more Civil Reserve Air Fleet aircraft before buying more C-17s, Schwartz says.
