Malaysia’s AirAsiaX has taken delivery of its first Airbus A330-300. The Rolls-Royce Trent 700-powered aircraft is configured to seat 383 in a two-class layout. The low-cost unit of AirAsia Group ordered 25 of the type to build long-haul operations from its Kuala Lumpur base to cities in Australia, North Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
China aims to challenge the global aerospace industry with a range of increasingly focused civil and military aircraft and system builders, following a sweeping restructuring of its aeronautics sector. Specialized Chinese aircraft businesses that are emerging from the restructuring are the competitors that U.S., European, Russian and Japanese companies will struggle against and cooperate with over the coming decades.
SES says it has been affected by further solar array failures on its fleet of Lockheed Martin A2100 spacecraft. In August, the satcom operator reported a small reduction in commercial capacity on two satellites, AMC-4 and AMC-16, with “some potential future additional degradation.” Aon Space, in a September report, said AMC-16 “continues to lose solar array strings” and that the power loss is rumored to be at 25%, sufficient to trigger a claim. In third-quarter results disclosed Oct. 27, SES revealed it had lost six transponders on its AMC-6 satellite.
Monte Belger, who is vice president of Lockheed Martin Transportation and Security Solutions, has been elected chairman-elect of the Alexandria, Va.-based Air Traffic Control Assn. Nine area directors and were elected: Northeast U.S., Mike Headley of Apptis; Eastern U.S., Jeff Griffith of the Washington Consulting Group; Southeast U.S., Robert Coulson of the Harris Corp.; North Central U.S., Jim Crook, who is retired from the U.S.
President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will place Iskander short-range missile systems in Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that borders NATO members Lithuania and Poland. The U.S. has announced it would place in Poland a Patriot missile battery capable of shooting down short-range missiles. Medvedev said in a Nov. 5 speech that Russia plans to jam U.S. missile-defense systems, parts of which are to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, and that Moscow was scrapping plans to stand down three Cold War-era missile regiments.
Douglas Barrie (London), Robert Wall (Paris), Michael A. Taverna (Paris)
France’s plans to provide urgently needed equipment to its forces in Afghanistan are proving more complicated than anticipated. An envisioned surge in combat capability is raising all sorts of questions, ranging from what systems to deploy to whether the existing infrastructure is adequate to support them.
Ed Chevrestt has become vice president/general manager of BBA Aviation’s Executive Beechcraft , Kansas City, Mo. He was general manager of American Airlines’ maintenance base at Kansas City International Airport.
Boeing is studying the impact of reducing its annual rate for building C-17 Globemaster III cargolifters to eight aircraft from 15. “You’ve got to look at the external realities,” says Chris Chadwick, president of Boeing Military Aircraft. As the impact of the recent financial crisis takes hold, Boeing and other defense companies are bracing for flat, or possibly declining, spending at the Pentagon. Chadwick wants input from a team studying the issue within six weeks.
Hondgu is now aiming to secure service release of its L-15 advanced jet trainer in 2009, though the company has yet to gain an order from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (Plaaf) for the type. A company executive suggests an order could be forthcoming “soon.” The first version to be cleared will be subsonic, with the supersonic variant to follow in 2011. Development issues with the afterburning variant of the Progress Al-222-25 have at least partly been responsible for the delay.
Mike Alvis (see photos) has been named vice president-strategy and business development and Dave Smith vice president-program management for the ITT Corp. ’s Night Vision Div., Roanoke, Va. Alvis was vice president-programs and Smith director of program management.
The price of EU emission allowances (EUAs) under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme found tentative support in early November on the back of utility and financial buying, following a dramatic collapse in October. December 2008 EUAs traded around the €18 ($23.40) per metric ton mark in late October on the over-the-counter market, and the price held broadly steady during the first few days of November. The brief period of stability followed a collapse from as high as €23.62 on Oct. 14, and as high as €25.35 on Sept. 22.
The aggregate U.S. intelligence budget for Fiscal 2008 was $47.5 billion, up $4 billion from the previous year, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The congressionally mandated announcement covers the aggregate amount of funds appropriated by Congress to the National Intelligence Program for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. But true to the craft, the DNI will not discuss it any further.
A plasma rocket engine that may one day get a test on the International Space Station has reached a power milestone in one of the radio-frequency (RF) systems used to heat the electrically charged fluid that serves as a propellant. The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr), under development by Houston-based Ad Astra Rocket Co., reached its target rating of 30 kw. in a test of the RF device that generates the core plasma. The Oct. 22 test, which used argon as the propellant, sets the stage for integration of the 170-kw.
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Graham Warwick (Washington)
BAE Systems and Boeing have joined ranks to move quickly into the Pentagon’s effort to slow investment in new projects and concentrate on upgrading existing programs, particularly in the fields of electronic attack and cyberwarfare. This is part of a Defense Dept. attempt to better rationalize its investments, reuse technology it has already paid for and ensure that programs are not duplicated by the military services and other agencies (AW&ST Oct. 27, p. 40).
France is trimming some aerospace projects in its long-term spending plan, but has decided to support a range of military space projects to maintain its European leadership role in that area.
A recent correspondent suggested using “linear motors” built into airplanes and airstrips to move aircraft without burning jet fuel (AW&ST Oct. 13, p. 10). Follow the KISS principle! If you want to move an airplane without burning fuel, just use a tractor. They are all over any airport. An electric tractor can be recharged between pulls and be a lot simpler than a linear motor.
USAF Maj. Gen. Frederick F. Roggero has been appointed chief of safety at USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon and commander of the Air Force Safety Center, Kirtland AFB, N.M. He was director of air, space and information operations at Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Ill. Maj. Gen. Stephen D. Schmidt has been named commander of the NATO Airborne Early Warning Force, Casteau, Belgium. He has been commander of its E-3A Component, Geilenkirchen AB, Germany. Brig. Gen. Robert H.
The International Air Transport Assn.’s effort to push greater liberalization of the commercial aviation sector will get another airing early next year. The debate began late last month in Istanbul in a session at which 14 countries and the European Union were represented. By early next year IATA is to devise a multilateral policy statement on liberalization, while governments have agreed to share best practices in this area. One of the issues being debated is how change might be implemented.
EADS has begun air-to-air refueling clearance work on the Eurofighter Typhoon from the Airbus A310 Multi-Role Tanker Transport. The aim is to have the aircraft certificated by year-end, during a nine-flight program. Two Eurofighter aircraft—instrumented production aircraft—have been used for the flight trials, from the EADS Military Air Systems site in Manching, Germany.
Dassault has made design refinements to its Rafale small satellite launcher concept, which is under development with the help of the French space agency, CNES.
The Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2) on the Hubble Space Telescope is back on line, as illustrated by this Oct. 27-28 image of the aftermath following an intergalactic collision.
Following the Pentagon’s Oct. 16 cancellation of the U.S. Army’s ARH-70A Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program, Bell Helicopter has cut 500 jobs, mostly at its main plant in Fort Worth. The layoffs go beyond those people working directly on the ARH program, which was canceled after serious cost and schedule overruns. Only a few jobs are being cut at Bell’s production plant in Amarillo, Tex., and none at its Montreal commercial helicopter facility.
European satellite operators say demand for high-definition television is accelerating, underscoring the buoyant market for consumer electronics despite the ongoing global financial crisis. SES Astra reports that it has added 13 HDTV channels since August—a 30% increase—and now has 55 overall. The total number of high-definition channels in the SES group, which includes Americom and New Skies as well as Astra, has risen to 137. Eutelsat has added 12 HTDV channels of its own since June, and now transmits 61, compared with 17 in June 2007.
