Pittsburgh International Airport has seen lower fares, increased traffic and a better mix of legacy and low-cost carrier air service since US Airways cut it as a hub in 2004, according to Lucinda Harschman, the airport’s director of air service development. Pittsburgh’s low-cost carriers attracted 360,000 additional passengers for an economic impact of $1.8 billion, according to a study commissioned by the airport. The airport looked at ways to protect the city’s top 30 business markets, says Harschman. “We found that if we could keep the top 25, we’d be fine.
Compass Airlines will build a $9.85-million, three-bay maintenance facility at Louisville (Ky.) International Airport for its fleet of 76-seat Embraer 175 regional jets. Louisville is centrally situated between parent Northwest Airlines’ chief hubs at Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis. Construction is set to be completed by fall 2008.
The search for Steve Fossett over rugged Nevada terrain continued in its third week with no sign of the aviator-adventurer, who was last seen Sept. 3, when he took off from the Flying M Ranch air strip at Yerington, Nev. The Civil Air Patrol has scaled back its search effort using fixed-wing aircraft, but as of late last week, eight Army and Air National Guard helicopters and five fixed-wing aircraft were flying assigned search grids daily, looking for signs of Fossett and his Bellanca Super Decathlon aircraft.
Avionics Innovations Inc., provider of IFE solutions for business and regional aviation will include an Apple iPod Nano with each ICE (Integrated Cabin Entertainment) system from Sept. 15-Dec. 15, in celebration of its system’s one-year anniversary. “This promotion rewards dealers and customers with something they can use with their ICE system,” notes President Dave Hainline. The company recently received a contract to supply a ruggedized Mil-Spec video switching unit to BAE Systems for a pending retrofit program funded by the U.S. Army.
Honeywell Aerospace will serve as an APU/air management systems integrator on the A350XWB in a deal potentially worth $16 billion, as Airbus prepares to roll out similar integration agreements with other vendors. Airbus is expected to announce a fresh wave of awards for the A350XWB as it moves to assemble larger, complete work packages with a smaller number of major suppliers. These companies will relieve the European airframer of a lot of the systems integration work it used to do itself.
After bitter budget deliberations, the Swedish government last week slashed defense spending, with cuts of 350 million kronor ($53.6 million), 620 million kronor and 980 million kronor in the next three years. Defense minister Mikael Odenberg, who thought he had fended off the cuts, left the government in the run-up to the announcement. More cuts could come, with a review now begun to see if annual defense budget expenditure can be reduced by 3-4 billion kronor starting in 2010.
The U.S. Air Force’s tests using Fischer-Tropsch process-derived fuel are more of a publicity stunt than a useful approach to reducing the use of imported oil for military aviation (AW&ST June 25, p. 24). FT-derived fuel will barely produce any more energy than will be invested in the process itself, and will result in egregious environmental damages to the U.S.
China will return to the Moon with human explorers before the U.S. accomplishes that goal, says NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, illustrating his view of the intensifying economic competition between the two countries fueled by spaceflight activities. In the first of a planned series of lectures commemorating NASA’s 50th anniversary next year, Griffin says the U.S. public is unaware of the spacefaring skills of Russia, China and India, as well as those of NASA’s established spaceflight partners in Europe and Japan.
Delegates from 40 African nations have endorsed a comprehensive safety improvement plan that will allow the International Civil Aviation Organization to manage and coordinate government and private projects aimed at reducing the continent’s increasingly poor safety record. A four-year budget of $3.8 million will fund the new role for ICAO. African-based air carriers have the world’s highest accident rate: increasing to five fatal accidents per million departures from 2000-04 from 3.6 per million departures from 1995-99.
As Air Force Space Command continues to advocate for its programs in the Pentagon’s Fiscal 2009 budget process and the burgeoning Fiscal 2010 financial plan, two lower-profile efforts are becoming a central focus. Aside from big-ticket programs such as Space-Based Radar, the Transformational Satellite program and a new GPS system, the command is conducting a clean-sheet review of its space surveillance resources, including spaceborne and terrestrial sensors that were largely developed to observe space activities in the then-Soviet Union. Air Force Space Command chief Gen.
The Australian government has approved Brisbane Airport Corp.’s plans to build a new $1-billion parallel runway. The project will create 2,700 jobs during construction and provide $5 billion per year in local economic benefits after it is constructed. About 17.5 million passengers use the airport per year; this is expected to grow to 25 million per year by 2015 and 50 million by 2035.
Saudi Arabia’s five E-3 AWACs, via the U.S. Air Force’s Electronic Systems Center, have received a $49.2-million Link-16 communications upgrade from Boeing. The secure, jam-resistant, digital data link allows aircraft, ships and ground forces to talk to each other. This is slated as the first in a series of upgrades to the fleet. A key goal is to connect E-3s and F-15s with the data links.
USN Capt. (ret.) Eugene Cernan has been named winner of the 2007 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy by the National Aeronautic Assn. The trophy is awarded “for significant public service of enduring value to aviation in the United States.” Cernan was selected for his lifetime of achievement as an astronaut, naval aviator and ambassador for aerospace. After logging 566 hr. 15 min. in space—of which more than 73 hr. were spent on the Moon—Cernan became program manager as the senior U.S. negotiator in discussions with the USSR on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
Eclipse Aviation is finding that mass producing very light jets (VLJs) is easier said than done. Nearly a year after receiving FAA type certification, the company has delivered barely 50 Eclipse 500s, not the hundreds promised. Eclipse has hired automotive consultants to redesign its production line and is scrambling to replace underperforming suppliers. But with the VLJ market growing more crowded with offerings from Cessna, Embraer and HondaJet, time is of the essence. Eclipse photo by Erik Hildebrandt.
James Lemke, CEO, Achates Power Inc. (San Diego, Calif.)
In the article on aircraft-versus-car efficiency (AW&ST Aug. 20/27, p. 55), the quote attributed to Director General/CEO Giovanni Bisignani of the International Air Transport Assn.—“new aircraft are highly efficient compared with motor cars”—is incorrect if each is evaluated at capacity. Hybrids and Volkswagen TDIs get 48 mpg. and carry four passengers. This is 1.2 liters per 100 passenger-kilometers (pkm.) compared to the Airbus A380 at 2.9 liters per 100 pkm.
Turmoil in the financial markets is not expected to stymie the recovery of the satcom sector, although it will make new projects more expensive and may doom some of those with a weak business case.
The U.S. Air Force is applying a full-court press to integration of active duty and reserve/Air National Guard operations. An Air Force Reserve Command officer commissioning program will be consolidated with the active-duty Officer Training School at Maxwell AFB, Ala. The Eagle Vision 6 deployable satellite downlink ground station will be shifted to Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Ala., where it can train with Army intelligence personnel.
Hamilton Sundstrand will supply environmental controls, auxiliary power units and main-engine start systems for U.S. Marine Corps CH-53K helicopters, under a $400-million contract. Design and development work starts immediately, with deliveries set for 2009.
Raytheon has captured a $16-million contract to adapt the active, electronically scanned array radar technology (which can see farther and detect smaller objects) to optical energy—in particular lasers. The project is to build an array of sub-apertures in which each element can transmit, receive and rapidly steer spatially phased optical energy and images. The company also is to demonstrate a modular architecture that can be scaled to large apertures and high powers. Laser applications of interest include weapons, sensing and targeting, communications and countermeasures.
Sept. 30-Oct. 3—Airport Council International North America’s Annual Conference and Exhibition. Kansas City (Mo.) Convention Center. Call +1 (202) 293-8500, ext. 3016 or see www.aci-na.org Oct. 9-10—The Aerospace Corp.’s Manufacturing Problem Prevention Program Meeting on Advanced Space Materials. Corporate Headquarters, El Segundo, Calif. Call +1 (310) 336-5000, fax +1 (310) 336-7055 or see www.aero.org/conferences
Fuel may have overtaken labor as the primary expense for airlines, but growing pressures on the global labor market still pose a risk for the air transport industry. Although airlines have seen profitability increase, “there are some difficult challenges ahead and the environment is looking riskier than [it has] for sometime,” says Brian Pearce, chief economist for the International Air Transport Assn. “We are entering a period where cost pressures are rising.” IATA just lowered its 2008 net profit guidance (issued in June) by $1.8 billion to $7.8 billion.
Nestor Mauro Koch has become vice president-marketing and sales for VEM Maintenance and Engineering of Rio de Janeiro. He succeeds Luis Alberto Correa, who has become vice president-logistics.
