The British Royal Air Force will take delivery of its fifth Boeing C-17 this month, with a sixth aircraft to be handed over in June. The four RAF C-17s now in service are supporting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Honeywell Aerospace has been chosen to participate in the Single European Sky ATM Research Phase 2 effort, also called the Sesar Joint Undertaking. Honeywell is the only U.S. company among the first 15 selected to be members of the undertaking, which will conduct €2.1 billion ($3.1 billion) in research over the next seven years to figure out how to modernize the European air traffic management system.
Sea Launch is preparing for the March orbiting of the Boeing DirecTV 11 satellite, following the return to service of its Zenit-3SL launcher last month. Boeing shipped the Model 702 satellite-to-home broadcast spacecraft to Sea Launch’s home port in Long Beach, Calif., on Jan. 26.
The list of major Russian airlines is out, with carriers disclosing their 2007 operational results. Aeroflot easily retained its leadership position, having transported 8.2 million passengers, or 12% more than in 2006. S7 airlines carried 5.7 million travelers, a 16% increase; with state transport company GTK Rossia in the third slot with 3.2 million passengers but a loss of 7.8% in volume over the prior year. Transaero has inched closer to Rossia, also carrying 3.2 million passengers and having benefited from 51.7% growth.
Qantas Boeing 747-400 in special livery prepares to land at Los Angeles International Airport. The Australian carrier is pushing aggressively to grow beyond its home market and position itself as a leading Asia-Pacific airline group, as early signs of regional consolidation emerge (see p. 44). Erik Simonsen photo.
Energia Space Corp. will take steps to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 21, 2007, ballistic reentry of the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft as it returned from the International Space Station, following a report of the Russian state commission that investigated the anomaly. Energia chief Vitaly Lopota says the problem was traced to a damaged cable behind the control panel, and already has been corrected. Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov and Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor of Malaysia fell some 340 km.
Flight testing of the SpaceShipTwo suborbital tourist vehicle and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier is scheduled for this summer. The Spacecraft Co.—a joint venture between Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space-tourism subsidiary and Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites—has started assembling the first of each vehicle at its Mojave, Calif., facility. Virgin Galactic has ordered five SpaceShipTwos (shown) with options for seven more, and two of the twin-boom motherships.
Karl Sutterfield might have a point in his letter about ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) and unmanned aerial vehicles (AW&ST Dec. 3, 2007, p. 10) by saying the matter is not “see and avoid” with or without electronic eyes. The matter falls under rules of separation and the law.
Russian controllers are checking out the new Express-AM33 telecom satellite following its Jan. 28 launch on a Proton-M booster with a Breeze M upper stage. Built by NPO PM in cooperation with Thales Alenia Space for state-owned Russian Satellite Communication Co., Express-AM33 features more output power than previous AM spacecraft.
Eurocontrol expects up to 700 very light jets to be operating in Europe by 2015—440 are on order-—with 100 VLJs being introduced into service each year for the near future. The agency is launching the European VLJ Integration Platform to address how to handle the surge of aircraft in the dense air traffic management environment.
Singapore Airlines has set Mar. 18 as the start of A380 operations to London Heathrow Airport. The carrier will receive its third A380 at the end of the month, and then use the three mega-transports to shuttle among London, Singapore and Sydney. Turnaround time at Heathrow will be almost 4 hr.
Air France is gradually modernizing its Airbus narrow-body short-haul fleet. The first of the upgraded aircraft was put into operations last month and a second is to follow this month. In total, seven A321s will receive the upgrades. While much of the effort is cosmetic, such as adding a new color scheme, the revised interior creates more room in the cabin and baggage overhead compartments.
It’s an understood fact of life that the U.S. Defense budget generates about 50% of the world’s annual military spending. This creates a deceptively simple market outlook for Joseph Ackerman who, during his 10-year tenure as CEO of Elbit, has seen the company’s business increase to $1.5 billion in 2006 from $307 million in 1996.
Spain has completed its portion of the $64-million contract to equip Tiger HAD helicopters with Spike-ER anti-tank missiles. General Dynamics Santa Barbara Sistemas is serving as prime contractor for the Rafael-developed weapon, and will provide logistics support. The Spike-ER program to Spain is to be completed by 2012. The country’s army also uses Spike.
Last month, American Airlines announced its first loss in the last seven quarters (AW&ST Jan. 21, p. 39). The board of directors of parent AMR Corp. approved a one-time payment of $800 to all eligible employees. Now I know what it’s like to be treated like an executive. My company loses money, and I am rewarded for a job well done!
David A. Fulghum (Washington), Douglas Barrie (London)
Boeing is trying to chip away at Lockheed Martin’s lead in the future fighter stakes by pitching further variants of the F/A-18 Super Hornet, followed with the promise of a leap to what some now dub a sixth-generation combat aircraft. The company is continuing to push both the Super Hornet and the F-15 Eagle in the export arena, and may be eroding some potential Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter markets. In the mid-term, however, Boeing requires a new platform if it wants to sell combat aircraft beyond the final iterations of its current generation.
Thailand and Sweden have completed an arms transfer package to provide six Gripen fighters and two Saab 340-based Erieye airborne early warning systems to the Thai military. Valued at about 3.8 billion Swedish kroner ($596 billion), the fighter package includes two single-seat C-models and four two-seat D-versions. The agreement means detailed talks will now start between Swedish armaments agency FMV and Saab. Hand-over of the equipment is to start in 2011.
Roger Connor, History Committee Chair (American Helicopter Society)
Douglas Barrie’s comment that “on Nov. 13, 1907, Frenchman Paul Cornu is generally held to have become airborne [in a helicopter]” can now be clarified (AW&ST Nov. 12, 2007, p. 66). Gordon Leishman of the University of Maryland has brought Cornu’s flight test notes to light, which translated, read for Nov. 13: “The machine rises with a 55-kg. sandbag. We try to hold it down, but I find myself lifted up and carried away, Jacques is almost too.
Qantas Airways is pushing aggressively to grow beyond its home market and position itself as a leading Asia-Pacific-region airline group, as early signs of regional consolidation emerge.
I appreciate your editorial on the difficulties in designing, manufacturing and delivering a super-large engineering project (AW&ST Jan. 21, p. 58). Neither company should wallow in schadenfreude. It just shows that these programs are fiendishly difficult to execute, even with the best brains available. All projects need excruciating attention to detail as well as all other considerations. Thank you for bring us all back to Earth.
In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, European government and aerospace leaders are becoming serious about putting their money where their mouths are when it comes to shaping a more environmentally sensitive industry—an agenda that could well have competitive implications for their U.S. counterparts.
French space officials are counting on France’s upcoming turn at the head of the European Union to promote new milspace and climate initiatives—and obtain a long-awaited increase in national space spending.
Four years ago, Hellenic Aerospace Industry S.A. (HAI) fit the stereotype of a state-owned aerospace/defense contractor to a tee—bloated, inefficient, unprofitable and slow to respond to market opportunities. The company—Greece’s largest such enterprise—was little more than a government-sponsored jobs program. Sales had been on a decline for years, sinking to a low of $97 million in 2004. HAI effectively had been in a slumber since it was formed in 1975.
