Air China is seeing indications of a market recovery in both domestic air travel and freight. The airline, the only major Chinese carrier not receiving state financial aid, has asked the government for additional capital. Meanwhile, it is cutting spending but expects to expand its fleet modestly this year, although the increase in capacity will be moderated by returning leased aircraft. Chairman Kong Dong says the airline will receive 27 aircraft and return 8-10.
Lufthansa Cargo plans to ground two more MD-11s in October owing to the dramatic drop in demand in the air freight business, while one of its nearest competitors, Cargolux, has yet to shrink its fleet despite a $61-million net loss for 2008. The German line has idled four MD-11s already, meaning the additional capacity pull will effectively put one-third of the airline’s fleet on the ground. Lufthansa Cargo saw demand drop 20% in the first quarter and has not noticed any signs of improvement yet.
As the FAA deploys its Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) infrastructure, it is working with airlines and industry to develop new uses for the technology, including runway incursion prevention (see p. 36). Avionics company ACSS is exploring how to include an alerting feature in its SafeRoute suite of ADS-B applications, and our cover image from ACSS shows how a cockpit display of traffic information might warn the pilot of an incursion. The own-ship symbol is shown as an aircraft outline on an airport moving map.
Some work from Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth-based F-35 production line will likely be moved to Marietta, Ga., where the company is now planning for the eventual closure of its F-22 Raptor manufacturing capacity. Lockheed Martin officials say they expect to move assembly of the wing carry-through structure to Marietta beginning in 2010. Initially, 70 jobs will be involved and later 300. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to end the buy of twin-engine stealthy F-22s at 187, curbing Air Force ambitions for at least 243 aircraft.
France has ordered a third command ship/helicopter carrier to augment its force projection capability. The 21,000-metric-ton displacement vessel, which also carries surgical units, amphibious landing craft and troops, will be built by STX France and DCNS with funding from a €2.4-billion ($3.1-billion) aerospace and defense economic stimulus package approved late last year. The first two ships were delivered in 2006-07.
Raymond Blohm says F-22s only carry eight missiles and fire two at a time, so all the enemy has to do is throw enough expendable fighters at F-22s to exhaust their missile supplies (AW&ST Mar. 30, p. 8). Then it will be F-22 cannons against their missiles; a kill ratio of 4:1. If this is all F-22s are good for, then perhaps we could get by with something less sophisticated that could carry far more missiles and have a higher kill ratio. But he wants to buy more F-22s, presumably because they are more sophisticated.
France’s newest nuclear ballistic missile-carrying submarine, the Terrible, completed an initial test firing of a dummy missile on Apr. 18, although the mockup’s float system malfunctioned after launch. Defense ministry officials said the dummy—sized to represent the country’s new M51 missile—will be retrieved shortly to determine the cause of the malfunction and analyze test results. The Terrible, the fourth of the Triomphant-class submarines, was launched in January and christened on Mar. 21.
Helicopter emergency medical services stakeholders agree that the sector’s dismal fatal accident record must be improved. But they disagree on how. Proponents for voluntary industry change, FAA rulemaking and legislation recently formally made their cases. The divergent views became apparent at the Apr. 21 House Aviation subcommittee hearing that explored HEMS safety oversight and whether legislation—specifically, state regulation of EMS operations—was the “cure.”
The article “Prosecutorial Overreach” reports that members of a Tuninter ATR 72 cockpit crew were sentenced to prison for executing an only partially successful ditching. Although we have been painfully aware since 9/11 that aircraft fly above a vulnerable quilt of innocents, the judges—with the hindsight benefit of extensive flight simulator testing of the feasibility—asserted the pilots failed to try and land on the nearest runway.
Disappointing results from a request for information (RFI) from industry have led the U.S. Army to head back to the drawing board for its canceled Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) program. “Based on the results of the RFI, no manufacturer had an aircraft that exists today that met all the key performance parameters,” according to Col. Frank Tate, action officer for attack and reconnaissance aviation programs. Moreover, the Army has decided to launch an analysis of alternatives (AOA) to determine, among other things, the next step for ARH.
Chicago’s Midway Airport will remain in municipal ownership, at least for now. The $2.5-billion plan to lease the square-mile port on the South Side to the Midco consortium has died, a victim of the recession. The city and Midco closed the 99-year lease after agreeing earlier to a two-week extension of the Apr. 6 financing deadline. “The company was unable to finalize the transaction due to current global market conditions that have materially deteriorated since the bid award,” Midco states.
Arianespace has been selected to orbit JCSAT-13, a telecommunications satellite recently ordered by Japan’s SkyPerfectJSAT Corp. from Lockheed Martin. The launch, set for 2013 on an Ariane 5, is the seventh awarded to Arianespace this year.
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) controllers are checking out a new 300-kg. (661-lb.) radar imaging satellite—Risat-2—built with Israeli technology in a hurry-up effort to improve India’s satellite reconnaissance capabilities over Pakistan in the wake of last year’s terror attacks in Mumbai. ISRO used a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C12) Apr. 20 to launch the spacecraft from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island on the Bay of Bengal.
Telespazio spacecraft operators at the Fucino Space Center in Italy will soon begin operations with the Sicral 1B communications satellite after it was sent into orbit by a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL Apr. 20. Liftoff from the Sea Launch Odyssey oceangoing platform came at 4:16 a.m. EDT, and operators at Fucino later acquired the spacecraft’s first signals from orbit and confirmed its health. Odyssey was positioned on the Equator at 154 deg. W. Long. The Zenit-3SL’s Block DM-SL upper stage inserted the 6,697-lb.
SES Astra and Al Yah Satellite Communications Co. of Abu Dhabi will create a joint venture to offer direct-to-home TV services to more than two dozen countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Southwest Asia. Yahsat is investing more than $1.7 billion in a privately owned dual-use satcom company intended to serve commercial and government customers in the Persian Gulf and surrounding regions. The investment includes two large Ka-/Ku-/C-band spacecraft and an extensive ground network being supplied by EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space.
The slowdown in civil aerostructures business is forcing Saab to restructure and lay off another 300 employees, with more terminations possible. CEO Ake Svensson says more focus will be put on aerosystems and the continued push to sell Gripen fighters. The 300 layoffs at Linkoping, Sweden, are to take effect this year, and come on top of 500 positions being eliminated over two years as part of a larger cost savings program.
Europe has been a leader in addressing aviation’s role in climate change. In both regulations and research, the European Union has sought ways to reduce airline pollution, particularly greenhouse gases.
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has completed qualification of its 90-lb.-thrust Draco spacecraft thruster and propulsion tank at the company’s test site in McGregor, Tex. SpaceX says tests included 42 firings with more than 4,600 pulses of varying lengths and were performed in a vacuum test chamber to simulate the space environment. Some 18 Draco thrusters will be used on the Dragon spacecraft, which has been selected by NASA as part of its commercial resupply services contract to carry cargo to the International Space Station and return cargo to Earth.
Airpower advocates are criticizing Defense Secretary Gates for not taking into account the impact of his defense budget revisions on the aerospace industrial base. Retired Adm. John Nathman, former vice chief of Naval Operations, says Gates’s Apr. 6 procurement realignment plan provides stability for shipyards, despite delays for some amphibious ships and a halt to the next-generation destroyer program. But Gates wants to end further F-22 acquisition and put plans for a new bomber on hold, prompting Nathman to bemoan a dearth of work for tactical aircraft design teams.
Build it and they will come, the saying goes, and as the FAA deploys its ground infrastructure, the question being asked with increasing urgency is when will operators equip to use Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast?
NASA plans to roll out its Fiscal 2010 budget the first week in May, amid complaints that the White House staff is giving short shrift to the U.S. space program. The space agency is struggling to make ends meet during the difficult transition to the post-shuttle era.
When you have been underwater for as long as the U.S. major airlines, touching bottom can be a relief. Carriers are seeing signs that the steep demand drops of recent months are finally leveling off, although actual recovery still appears a distant prospect.
Plans for replacing the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), which fell short of orbit when its Taurus XL payload fairing failed to separate following a Feb. 24 launch, should be ready by summer. Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Div.
A new agreement with Airbus underscores the growing interdependence of Western airframers and Russian raw materials suppliers. The Apr. 20 pact among Airbus and its parent company EADS and VSMPO-Avisma—which is part of the Russian Technologies State Corp.—is expected to ensure the supply of titanium and die-forged titanium parts for Airbus and other EADS divisions through 2020.
Pilatus sees its 2009 prospects as “satisfactory” despite the slowdown that has hit the business aviation community. Pilatus enters the downturn with no debt and bolstered by record sales last year of 661 million Swiss francs ($575 million), up from 656 million Swiss francs the year prior. But a declining exchange rate against the dollar meant that despite increased deliveries, operating profit fell to 55 million from 59 million Swiss francs in 2007. Pilatus also booked 1.2 billion Swiss francs in new orders in 2008.
