Indonesia was order central for Boeing. Garuda Indonesia ordered four 777-300ERs valued at $1 billion at list prices. The carrier confirmed a previously unidentified order for seven 737-800s that it placed last year. It also converted existing orders for two models to larger aircraft: 18 737-700s will become 737-800s and six 777-200ERs will become 777-300ERs. Lion Air increased its 737-900ER order book to 178 aircraft with the addition of airplanes valued at $4.4 billion. It took purchase rights for another 50 aircraft.
A Lufthansa Boeing 737 en route between Frankfurt and Munich completed the first operational use of Mode S flight identity downlink, according to Eurocontrol. Radar identification of the Jan. 18 flight was established and maintained without assignment of a discrete secondary surveillance radar code. Only 4,095 codes are available—an insufficient number to sustain expected growth in air traffic. The use of Mode S now paves the way for expanded city-pair flights to be launched this year by German air navigation service provider Deutsche Flugsicherung.
Grupo Marsans has ordered Pratt & Whitney PW4000s to power five Airbus A330s, adding to 12 A330s with the Pratt engines that it ordered at last year’s Paris air show. Pratt also recorded an order from Air Caraibes to power three A330s.
Air-land-sea adventurer Steve Fossett was declared legally dead by a Chicago court on Feb. 15. The move paves the way to resolving the status of his estate. Fossett disappeared Sept. 3, 2007, after departing solo in his Bellanca C8KCAB-180 two-seat taildragger from a private airstrip near Yerington, Nev. (AW&ST Sept. 10, 2007, p. 16). Despite a months-long search effort, no trace of wreckage was found in the mountainous region.
Stork Aerospace, Bradford Engineering and the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) of the Netherlands are negotiating with Goodrich and Lockheed Martin to incorporate a new, high-power electronics cooling technology into the avionics infrastructure of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
Russ Chew has been appointed to the board of directors of the Era Corp. , Reston, Va. He is president/chief operating officer of JetBlue Airways and was chief operating officer of the FAA. Honors And Elections
Italian aerospace research center CIRA is preparing a second transonic drop test with its recoverable Unmanned Space Vehicle, a demonstrator designed to study critical technologies for future reusable or semi-reusable launchers. The flight, set for March-April at the flight test center in Sardinia, will involve a new test vehicle, Polux, and a considerably more complex trajectory than the first trial in February 2007.
Apr. 15-16—AVIATION WEEK Interiors, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Apr. 15-17—MRO Conference and Exhibition, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sept. 23-25—MRO Europe, Madrid. Oct. 14-16—MRO Asia, Singapore. PARTNERSHIPS Mar. 31-Apr. 6—FIDAE, Santiago, Chile. Apr. 1-3—JEC Composites, Paris. Apr. 7-10—U.S. Space Foundation, Colorado Springs. May 27-June 1—ILA Berlin air show. June 16-18—Aircraft Interiors-Middle East, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Boeing acknowledged the Iraqi government’s plan to buy 40 new and four used aircraft and six purchases from Bombardier. The government didn’t say what types it would buy or when.
Mumbai-based BJETS, which provides business aviation services in Asia, has ordered 11 Hawker 900XP and nine 850XP business jets from Hawker Beechcraft Corp. flights throughout India and Southeast Asia. BJETS also ordered 20 Cessna Citation CJ2+ jets.
The U.S. Special Operations Command (Socom) is ground-testing BAE Systems’ belly-mounted, 360-deg. gun system for CV-22s, with flight testing scheduled next, the company says. Socom oversaw installation of the system hardware on board the aircraft in January. The GAU-2B mini-gun weapon is based on BAE’s Remote Guardian System, a two-year company-funded effort to develop a common airborne defensive capability for the V-22 Osprey and other special-mission rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft.
Mark Harris (see photo) has been appointed site leader of the Fort Walton Beach, Fla., facility of Crane Aerospace and Electronics . He was business unit director for commercial products, fuel management systems and retail solutions for the Danaher Corp.
Lufthansa Technik is joining the “clean engine” service business with a Cyclean Engine Wash system. Airlines have water-washed their engines for years because it makes them use less fuel and burn cleaner. Lufthansa says regular Cyclean washing will cut kerosene and C02 emissions by 0.5-0.75%. Airlines commonly use high-pressure hoses to clean as best they can and usually open the cowlings or thrust reverser.
Lufthansa Technik will open a training center at Singapore’s Temasek Polytechnic on Mar. 27, as part of a broader effort to keep pace with the industry’s appetite for more workers. Executive Board Chairman August Wilhelm Henningsen says Lufthansa Technik trains 200-250 mechanics a year in Germany. The center it established at Tianjin, China, to train technicians for the Airbus A320 assembly line is likely to operate beyond its planned closing this year.
British Airways faces industrial action from its cockpit crew following a ballot for strike action. The problem is how BA is proposing to recruit crew for its Open Skies subsidiary. The British Airline Pilots Assn. says the 90% of the 3,000 BA pilots it represents took part, with 86% voting for strike action.
Teams in the U.S. and Italy will pursue an aggressive flight-test schedule this year aimed at expanding investigation of the BA609’s flight envelope as certification of the commercial tiltrotor moves toward completion by 2010.
Chengdu Aircraft may institute limited measures to reduce radar reflections from its FC-1 export fighter as the Chinese air force considers introducing the type into home service. The initial version will finish development late this year or early next year, according to Catic, China’s state company responsible for international sales of the aircraft, which Pakistan has helped to develop and will co-produce.
Robert Wall (Singapore), Michael Mecham (Singapore)
CFM International is stepping up its research efforts for a next-generation engine, with the addition of an open-rotor rig trial to complement ongoing work on future fan, turbine and compressor technologies. The activities are being carried out under the Leap56 (Leading-Edge Aviation Propulsion) program, which was launched more than two years ago. As airlines have upped their demands for greater fuel-burn improvements, CFMI— the General Electric/Snecma joint venture—has added open-rotor research and counterrotating fan technologies.
Don’t look for Orbital Sciences Corp. to spend a lot of the seed money it gets from NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to develop a way to retrieve cargo from the International Space Station. NASA is going to kick in about $170 million to help Orbital develop a new launcher and space tug (see p. 22). But the company doesn’t see much commercial potential in what is known as down mass from orbit.
Raytheon says it has won more than $100 million worth of contracts since January from Asia-Pacific countries for its Paveway family of precision-guided munitions. The company —which competes with Lockheed Martin for international Paveway business and even trademark issues—further proclaimed a record-setting $300 million worth of Paveway bookings for last year. Separately, Britain last week carried out further fuze trials for the Paveway IV. Introduction into service has been delayed in part by problems related to the fuze.
I continue to be amazed at the number of articles in Aviation Week & Space Technology by people who parrot the global warming party line on carbon, carbon caps, carbon trading, etc. That many of these folks are also decision makers is alarming, because foolish and expensive decisions are being predicated on tainted theories.
USAF Gen. (ret.) Lance Lord, R. Scott Nieboer, John A. Oliva and William F. Readdy have been named to the board of directors of Spacehab Inc. of Houston. Lord was commander of Air Force Space Command at Peterson AFB, Colo., while Nieboer is chief manager of Curtiswood Capital. Oliva is managing principal of Capital City Advisors Inc., and Readdy is a former astronaut and associate NASA administrator for space operations.
GE Aviation says it will begin to expand its GE Aviation Service Operation in Singapore by 20% in April, positioning the facility to double revenues over the next five years. It did $250 million in business last year.
Michael M. Hoeffler has been named vice president of the Raytheon Co. Evaluation Team. He succeeds Charles Franklin, who is retiring from the Waltham, Mass.-based company. Hoeffler was vice president-future naval capability for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.
