BOC Aviation, extending its campaign of sale-and-leaseback deals, has bought four Boeing 777s from Air France and leased them back to the airline. The agreement, for two 777-200LR freighters and two 777-300ER airliners, is the latest in a string of such financing contracts that the lessor, a subsidiary of the Bank of China, began signing in December.
Reader Mark E. J. Fay’s “Crash Prosecutions Have Merit” (AW&ST Apr. 27, p. 8) is uninformed. In more than 30 years in this business, I’ve yet to meet a flightcrew member who intentionally made an error. The concept of “criminality” implies intent. You can’t claim that prosecution should occur if there was never any intent to commit a crime.
Eurocopter is taking steps to improve workforce flexibility in order to more readily absorb fluctuations in market demand for new helicopters, say executives at the company, though they insist the new work rules do not imply an immediate decrease in production. Instead, the plan is part of a wide-ranging productivity initiative aimed at updating practices begun a decade ago when output was barely one-third of current levels.
The Obama administration is poised to resurrect the debate over user fees for commercial aviation, although it stresses it will not pursue unpopular policies such as airport congestion pricing and slot auctions.
Cargo Aircraft Management has selected AAR Corp.’s cargo system for six of its Boeing 767-200s that Israel Aerospace Industries’ Bedek Aviation Group is converting to freighter configuration. The system holds 19 A1 pallets and can be installed in about a day, according to Vincent Misciagna, general manager of AAR Cargo Systems. AAR, which forecasts a market of 200-400 767-200/-300 aircraft for its systems, announced last week that Bedek chose a system that can hold up to 24 A1 pallets for its 767-300 passenger-to-freighter conversion program.
As was widely predicted Orion has grown too heavy for Ares-1 (AW&ST Apr. 27, p. 18). Next to simply dropping the whole program the easiest solution is to kill Ares-1 and launch everything on Ares-5. Voila, no more weight problem, and billions saved on development costs. The smartest solution would be to kill both Ares and order Atlas V Heavy for the job.
U.S. Army aviation has now failed twice to deliver a new rotorcraft platform. The Comanche was canceled five years ago and the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter fizzled in October 2008. But with the ARH requirement still valid, the Army has to make a decision about how it is going to move forward, with all of its aircraft.
Officials at Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp. say Belac LLC, the joint venture Chromalloy created with United Airlines, Lufthansa and Alitalia, has lowered prices 9% on its parts manufacturer approval high-pressure turbine (HPT) blades for the CFM56-3 and CF6-50 engines. The price cut can save operators $200,000-300,000 for a set of HPT blades compared with original equipment manufacturer parts and comes as MRO shops see fewer discretionary engine overhauls and airlines conserve cash in the recession.
It would be hard to find an aerospace and defense (A&D) thought leader more respected than Norm Augustine. During the past half century, he has worked as a research engineer, a senior Pentagon official, a CEO who was instrumental in the industry’s great consolidation during the 1990s, a faculty member at Princeton University and chairman of a national Academies’ study on U.S. competitiveness. He holds 23 honorary degrees, and his shrewd business judgments and common sense have been studied by managers in many industries.
With the price of Singapore kerosene down to an average of $55.08 per barrel from February to April, All Nippon Airways says it has applied to Japan’s government for permission to cancel fuel surcharges on international routes. They varied from $2 on flights to Korea to $34 on trips to Europe, North America and the Middle East.
Wichita, Kan. Mayor Carl Brewer has renewed his invitation to President Barack Obama to visit his mother’s home town. Brewer wants the president, who has lambasted the use of business jets by corporate executives, to see the toll the downturn in the business and general aviation industries has taken on the Kansas city. “We have lost over 9,000 jobs in Wichita because of the economic downturn, and the string of negative press about general aviation and [resulting] fallout could cost this city 25,000 jobs,” Brewer says.
The business aviation community has taken some lumps lately. Economically, the sector is dealing with a severe downturn. The entire world is grappling with a recession. However, unlike most industries, business aviation has found itself with a perception problem on top of its economic woes.
Senate Judiciary Committee staffers want to know why ESTA, the U.S. electronic system for travel authorization that was rolled out last year to great fanfare by the Homeland Security Dept. (DHS), isn’t working better. The system allows citizens of countries in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program to be pre-screened for travel to the U.S. through a secure web site when they buy their tickets. Airlines also were supposed to be able to undertake pre-screening at check-in, but few carriers have the required bandwidth at their counters to access the system.
EADS Defense & Security says two radar technology initiatives aimed at developing an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for use on Eurofighter, Rafale and other advanced combat programs have been successfully concluded. The Airborne Multirole Solid-state Active-array Radar (Amsar), funded by Germany, France and the U.K. and run by EADS, Selex Galileo and Thales, was aimed at de-risking basic AESA technologies.
Views from two prominent charter operators—one large and one midsize—suggest the industry is digging in for tough times, although sustained demand from a few segments may blunt some of the sting.
First vertical landing by the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter is now expected in September. Aircraft BF-1 is to begin short takeoff and vertical landing mode transitions in the flight “in the next few weeks,” says Lockheed Martin, then ferry to NAS Patuxent River, Md., to continuing “building down” to lower airspeed until it is in hover. The company says the delay in the first vertical landing will not have a “meaningful impact” on the program.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is starting preliminary design of a fuel-cooled hypersonic ramjet/scramjet combustor for potential reusable applications, following better-than-predicted results from Mach 4 tests of a baseline engine. The tests, which were slated to be completed on May 8, have been conducted under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Facet (Falcon Combined-Cycle Engine Technology) program, and could pave the way for reusable, air-breathing Mach 6 vehicles that could take off and land from a conventional runway.
Aviation Partners is starting a retrofit program for blended winglets on Dassault’s Falcon 900 and 50 business aircraft, following FAA certification of the company’s winglets on the Falcon 2000. First installations on the 2000 are expected to start in the U.S. before the end of the month, says API, which adds it is in “the very early stages” of developing the retrofit for Falcon 900B/C, EX and EX EaSy versions. European EASA certification of the Falcon 2000 winglets is expected to be announced at the EBACE show this week in Geneva.
Space Exploration (SpaceX) hopes to reschedule a second launch attempt of the delayed Falcon 1 Flight 5 as early as next month, pending availability of the Reagan missile test range in mid-Pacific and clearance of a suitable launch window. Falcon 1 product manager Brian Bjelde says that following the Apr.
Jacobs Technology will take over from Lockheed Martin as support and facilities operations contractor at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, marking a major change as the space agency moves toward the post-shuttle era. Lockheed Martin had held the support contract along with the prime contract to build the space shuttle external tanks in the government-owned facility, but with the shuttle program coming to an end NASA won’t be buying more of the big aluminum-lithium tanks.
The complex process of obtaining a security clearance to access flight training in the U.S. often serves only as a “stay-home” incentive for foreign pilots—resulting in the loss of opportunities for both candidate and trainer. But the good news is that flight schools continue to seek ways to simplify this procedure.
May 18-21—Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering’s ’09 Baltimore Convention Center. Call +1 (626) 331-0616, fax +1 (626) 332-8929 or see www.sampe.org May 20—Washington Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society Presentation: USMC Gen. (ret.) Jack Dailey, director of the National Air and Space Museum. British Embassy, Washington. Call +1 (703) 693-1564 or e-mail: [email protected]
EADS’s Defense & Security Div. and India’s Larsen & Toubro have created a defense electronics joint venture that will include design, development and production of electronic warfare equipment, radar, military avionics and other activities. EADS has gradually been expanding its presence in India as part of efforts to sell the Eurofighter Typhoon in that country.
XCOR Aerospace is refining the aerodynamic design of its Lynx suborbital launch vehicle and preparing for another round of wind tunnel tests following completion of initial subsonic testing at the U.S. Air Force’s Air Vehicle Directorate’s vertical wind tunnel at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio. The 1/16th-scale Lynx model, daubed in a viscous orange oil for flow visualization, was suspended for the first tests in the 12 X 15-ft. section for extreme angle-of-attack, dynamic motion, and spin characteristics as well as overall configuration checks.
Airbus is giving itself until early next year to set A380 production targets for 2010, after airline deferrals have already forced the aircraft maker to curtail output for this year and acknowledge that a slowdown next year is coming.
