Garuda Indonesia may return leased Airbus A330s if it cannot rearrange a $737-million debt to the European Credit Agency. The Antara news agency says Garuda paid $214 million each for six A330-300s, which were bought between 1992-98 with financing from the European agency.
Jim Jamieson has been appointed director of engineering, Henry Leung mechanical design engineer and Robert Campbell a technical writer for Shadin Avionics , St. Louis Park, Minn. Jamieson was numerical modeling manager for Medtronic and Goodrich, while Leung was a principal mechanical engineer for General Dynamics. Campbell was lead technical writer for Honeywell International.
The Zodiac Group expects to ride the strong commercial aviation market to further organic growth in the 2007-08 fiscal year, although the rate of increase will be less than the 10.1% achieved for the recently completed cycle. The aeronautical business experienced a sales increase of 13.2%. Zodiac will soon shed one of its lower-performing units, the marine segment. That unit suffered a 0.2% drop in year-on-year sales. The sale, to the Carlyle Group, recently received approval from European anti-trust authorities.
New Russian military reconnaissance and navigation spacecraft operations are underway. On Sept. 11, a Russian Parus navigation satellite was launched into a 943 X 1,008-km. orbit inclined 83 deg. The mission was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a small Cosmos 3B booster. The Parus navsat constellation operates with a minimum of six spacecraft, providing specialized navigation data and store-dump radio communications to Russian naval forces and ballistic missile submarines. In reconnaissance operations, a Russian Kobal’t-M-class imaging satellite landed on Aug.
A Boeing Delta II will launch the third CosmoSkyMed Earth-imaging satellite built by Thales Alenia Space Italia for the Italian Space Agency. A Delta 7420-10 is to make the launch from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., next year.
The U.S. Air Force is taking a look at what changes, if any, are needed to ensure its fleet of military rocket engines can perform without interruption for upcoming payloads.
Northrop Grumman boasts that its bid for the U.S. Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) competition is the only one to actively execute end-to-end testing. Central to the company’s proposal for the high-profile program is its Multi-Function Active Sensor (MFAS), a 360-deg. radar capable of identifying and tracking ships. Together with the Boeing P-8A Multi-Mission Aircraft, BAMS will replace the Navy’s P-3 surveillance fleet.
Werner Knorr, a pilot and member of the Condor management board, has become head of Lufthansa flight operations. He succeeds Jurgen Raps, who has been appointed executive vice president-operations for Lufthansa German airlines.
The Italian defense ministry insists an apparent decision to launch its second military communications satellite, Sicral 1b, on a Sea Launch was based on operational reasons, and does not indicate a drop in support for Europe’s Ariane 5 launcher. The decision—which has yet to be officially confirmed—followed a Sept. 14 award of a €118-million ($164-million) contract for launch and operation of Sicral 1b to Telespazio, which will contribute funding in return for a share in capacity.
The DigitalGlobe WorldView-1 spacecraft—a major U.S. space program milestone that finally merges military and commercial space technology—will target its first operational images for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) by mid-October.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed its version of the FAA Reauthorization Act, pleasing labor, airports and general aviation interests while irritating the Bush administration over spending levels and revisiting the air traffic controllers’ labor contract. The measure, which passed 267-151, reauthorizes federal aviation programs for four years and provides funding to begin upgrading ATC facilities. The bill raised the GA jet fuel tax rate, but did not institute financing reforms proposed by the administration and supported by the airlines.
General Electric is ramping up studies into how to make production-standard pulse-detonation engines as it prepares to run the first-ever valve-controlled multi-tube PDE with a power turbine and gear system at its Global Research facility here.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has rejected the Air Force’s efforts to take over management of all Pentagon UAVs that fly above 3,500 ft., but confusion over who is in charge appears to continue. The Defense Dept. is organizing a series of teams to address topics including standardizing procurement and operational processes. Perhaps the most difficult issue ahead is how to merge the Army’s Warrior and the Air Force’s Predator programs, a marriage England decreed must be complete by October 2008.
The U.S. Air Force conducted its second flight trial of an inert version of a new low-collateral damage weapon. During the Sept. 14 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the Focused Lethality Munition’s (FLM) guidance system performed as required, says Don Hutcheson, Boeing’s direct attack weapons operations manager. FLM is a variant of the 250-lb. Small-Diameter Bomb (SDB). Both are developed by Boeing.
Virgin America CEO Fred Reid is keeping that title for an extra three months after the U.S. Transportation Dept. granted the airline’s request to allow him to stay at the helm instead of stepping down six months after launch, which would have been in November. That was a stipulation in giving the carrier approval to start operations.
Finmeccanica’s first-half revenues increased to €6.1 billion ($8.5 billion), which is 7% over the first half of 2006, with net profit reaching €177 million, up €19 million (excluding one-time gains). Operating earnings increased, but the margin declined to 5.1% from 5.3%. Finmeccanica also saw a substantial growth in net debt, which reached €2.26 billion, bringing the debt/equity ratio to 42% and above the level the management targeted. Order intake for the first six months reached €6.47 billion, a decline from last year’s €7.98 billion.
The STS-120 space shuttle Discovery mission remains targeted for launch Oct. 23 following replacement of hydraulic seals in its right main landing gear strut that originally threatened the target date. Workers at Kennedy Space Center discovered the hydraulic leak when they removed jacks supporting Discovery in the Orbiter Processing Facility, placing the full weight of the 100-ton orbiter on its landing gear.
Japanese controllers are maneuvering Selene (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer) spacecraft into position for insertion into lunar orbit on Oct. 4, following its launch on Sept. 14 from the launch facility on Tanegashima Island in southeast Japan. Over the coming week, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) controllers will adjust the three-ton probe’s elliptical orbit around Earth to set up a lunar orbit insertion 19 days, 19 hr. after launch. In that time, it will make two big swings around Earth before heading off to the Moon.
An Iranian web site associated with the national government says 600 Shahab-3 missiles are aimed at targets throughout Israel and will be launched if either Iran or Syria is attacked. Syria has not yet acknowledged, however, that Israeli aircraft bombed a military site in Western Syria two weeks ago. The Shahab-3 is Iran’s top-of-the-line ballistic missile but has a spotty test record, and it’s highly unlikely that anywhere near 600 of them are in inventory.
Finnair will use Airbus A330s for the bulk of its long-haul operations and to replace its Boeing MD-11s. The initial commitment is for seven A330-300s (six are firm orders previously announced for A330s or A340, and one is an exercised option). Three options remain. The A330s will be powered by General Electric CF6-80E1A4/Bs, in part because the airline’s technical department has experience with the CF6 on the MD-11. Finnair will still operate some A340-300s for very long-haul routes, having already taken delivery of a few of the type.
While all eyes have been on the Saudi Arabian Eurofighter Typhoon deal, BAE Systems has been quietly pushing ahead with the Tornado Sustainment Program for the Royal Saudi Air Force. At least eight RSAF Tornado strike aircraft have undergone the first phase of the upgrade, covering cockpit and avionics modifications. Weapons associated with further stages of the upgrade include the MBDA Storm Shadow cruise missile and Brimstone anti-armor missile.
A new 3M VHB tape has been developed for flame-retardant application in the aerospace industry. The company says the tape can take the place of traditional adhesives and mechanical fasteners including screws, welds, rivets, two-part adhesives and sealants. Use of the tapes can also help reduce the total weight of an aircraft, according to the company. Some of the industry standards met by the tape include FAR (a) second Vertical Burn Appendix F, Part 1 (a) (ii) and the European RoHS directive.
Harbin Aircraft will renew its push into the light transport market with an aircraft whose design has advanced the firm’s skill in computational fluid dynamics. Part of a broad initiative to develop a range of Chinese commercial aircraft that meet the standards of Western customers, the Y12F turboprop shows the great leap in efficiency that industry here has been able to achieve since the development of the original Y12 in the early 1980s.
There have been a lot of things written in letters by some smart people that are not supported by evidence, such as the idea that Mars would serve as an excellent baseline to compare warming trends with Earth. Mars is a different planet with different orbital mechanics, internal thermal dynamics, atmospheric dynamics and water cycles. This is not to say solar output does not affect all planets. We have recently discovered dramatic and sudden changes in the rings of Uranus, but we wouldn’t say this was due to solar output.
