Raytheon has been tapped to provide a new radar-warning receiver for Canada’s F/A-18s. The Pentagon says the $209-million contract will cover 59 ALR-67(V)3 RWRs and 24 partial shipsets of the system.
The Ariane 5 ECA rocket has completed its third of six planned launches this year, with another launch of two commercial satellites (Intelsat 11 and Optus D2) slated for the end of next month. During the Aug. 14 mission from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, the launcher carried two commercial satellites, Spaceway 3 and BSAT-3a. The Ariane lifted off at 8:44 p.m. local time, carrying around 8,840 kg. (19,500 lb.) of payload into geostationary transfer orbit.
Air Canada Jazz pilot Robert Perkins has received ALPA’s 2007 Air Safety Award. Perkins, who is Airport and Ground Environment Group vice chairman for both ALPA and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Assns., won ALPA’s highest safety honor for his contributions to advancing flight safety. He is credited with advocating programs aimed at reducing runway incursions, including installation of enhanced airport surface markings, and runway status and hold-short lights at North American airports.
The Russian government is trying to kick-start engine manufacturers to consolidate the country’s fragmented aerospace propulsion sector. President Vladimir Putin issued a decree Aug. 11 that will integrate the first group of companies. He also approved an initiative intended to form three additional firms. The two moves cover all of the country’s engine manufacturing and design capabilities.
Growing energy worries and rapidly improving technology are giving new impetus to the 40-year-old space solar power (SSP) concept, offering a clean way to meet the long-term energy needs of the global economy. Although the idea of using spacecraft to collect renewable energy from the Sun and beam it to Earth as microwaves or laser light has been around since the early 1960s, it is only recently that a convergence of economic and technological factors has started to make the idea feasible.
Singapore Airlines has set the date for the ceremonial start of A380 operations: Oct. 25. That’s the day that SQ380 will leave Changi International Airport for Sydney’s Kingford Smith Airport. The flight will follow an Oct. 15 handover ceremony of the aircraft, also known as MSN003, at Airbus’s Toulouse facility, where A380 final assembly takes place. After repeated delays with A380 assembly, Airbus in December promised to achieve the October delivery. Quietly, the aircraft maker was trying to beat that deadline.
Air Canada is the launch customer for a desktop software application developed by the Galileo global distribution system that will allow subscribing travel agents in Canada to access the full range of Air Canada’s fare products and flight passes. All information is integrated into the travel agents’ accounting system. A Galileo official says direct-connect capability is needed for travel agents to sell a variety of novel new services many airlines are now offering.
Louis Smith documents all the reasons for the shortage of pilots except the one that really counts: free market supply and demand forces (AW&ST Aug. 6, p. 66). He is right that the military pipeline has dried up. He is right that reductions in pay and benefits are making the airlines increasingly a poor career choice. But he is wrong that collective bargaining agreements and seniority list-merging will solve the problem.
China’s largest airline, China Southern, will buy a catering service, an aviation training operation and a travel agency from the state company that owns most of its shares. Such transactions are common in China as the government seeks to offload businesses to listed subsidiaries of state holding companies.
The International Civil Aviation Organization has become the focal point of the broad debate over how governments and airlines will go about reducing aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions. The most controversial method comes from the European Union where legislation is being contemplated to require international airlines operating in the EU to participate in its Greenhouse Gases Emissions Trading Scheme. It is by far the largest effort underway to reduce emissions.
Bell-Boeing’s Joint Program Office has won an $82.4-million U.S. Navy contract add-on to begin production of an additional USAF CV-22 Osprey special operations tiltrotor aircraft. Boeing also pulled in an $18-million Navy contract to design and build the Undergraduate Military Flight Officer ground-based training system for NAS Pensacola, Fla. The system can provide introductory training for naval flight officers, weapon system officers and international military flight officers training for advanced aircraft.
Adolfo Morales (see photo) has been named executive vice president/chief operating officer for North America for Worldwide Flight Services, Irving, Tex. He was senior vice president-planning and control.
Boeing is studying contingency plans to maintain its May 2008 delivery target for the first 787-8 in the face of mounting software and systems delays that could push first flight back into October.
The British Royal Air Force’s BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft has undergone lightning strike tests as part of its development program. The aircraft used was PA03. Other recent trials included the release of a Stingray torpedo, using PA02. The air force now plans to field a dozen MRA4s in the anti-submarine, anti-surface warfare, and surveillance roles. A full operational capability for the aircraft is anticipated in 2013. The present RAF in-service date is 2010.
Travel within Europe is dragging down premium traffic growth rates, according to the International Air Transport Assn.’s Premium Traffic Monitor. First- and business-class traffic grew worldwide by 1.9% in June, following a 0.7% fall in May. But within Europe, it was down 6.3% in June, after falling 10.5% in May, suggesting that the strong low-fare competition in Europe on short-haul routes has created a structural change and the declines are not cyclical. Those routes only account for 10% of all premium traffic revenues.
Midwest Airlines, a jewel of the post-deregulation era and target of an escalating bidding war, is facing a crossroads that will alter the company’s future in one of two very different ways. If either road is taken—and there appears to be no choice but for Midwest’s board to act one way or the other—commercial aviation in the region will mutate and likely improve, though much will depend finally on performance by surviving airlines.
Aer Lingus pilots are planning to strike Aug. 21-22 in response to the Irish carrier’s decision to establish a Belfast base. The pilots say they fear labor rules at the British base will be unacceptable compared to Ireland’s rules. But airline management rejects that claim, emphasizing Aer Lingus’s larger efforts to become more efficient.
The long-haul affiliate of fast-growing Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia will operate its first flights as early as late September, linking Kuala Lumpur with Gold Coast, an Australian east-coast holiday city. Fly Asia Xpress, to operate under the brand AirAsia X and eventually under the same company name, also has rights to London’s Stansted airport and Melbourne’s Avalon for its budget flights. AirAsia itself is taking a 20% stake in the company, as is Britain’s Virgin Group, part owner of Virgin Atlantic, for $7.2 million.
Few subjects are more polarizing than the one surrounding the relationship between global warming and the environmental impact of greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels. No matter which side of the debate you’re on, what has become increasingly clear is that aviation and aerospace companies are rapidly being drawn into the center of the environmental or Green movement.
USAF Maj. Gen. Ted F. Bowlds has been nominated for promotion to lieutenant general with assignment as commander of the Electronic Systems Center of Air Force Materiel Command, Hanscom AFB, Mass. He has been commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
Concerns about acoustics and vibration have prompted NASA to shift to an alternative design for the launch abort system for the Orion next-generation human spacecraft. Vibration and acoustic issues that arise during its boost phase have been troubling the Crew Exploration Vehicle’s design team for some months as it works through the initial systems definition review (AW&ST May 21, p. 43).
U.S. Transportation Security Administration head Kip Hawley says the agency’s Passenger Checkpoint Strategic Plan will be coming out in the fall. It lays out TSA’s vision for screening airline passengers in the future including advanced screening technology such as backscatter and millimeter-wave X-ray technology which is to be tested soon in three airports: Phoenix, Los Angeles and JFK.
Russia’s air transport industry is setting its sights on the global market, having overcome the dark days when financial problems threatened the sector’s very survival. Effectively, the industry is entering a third phase in its post-Soviet existence. At first, the issue was merely staying afloat; then the focus turned to serving the large domestic market and shoring up the sector’s financial wherewithal. Now, airlines and manufacturers have ambitions beyond the confines of Russia and its immediate neighbors.
A team led by an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, has figured out an automated system to build scalable 3D models of cities quickly by blending airborne laser scans of roof and terrain shapes with aerial imagery to create texture maps. The core idea is that having an exact 3D map of a city is important for counterterrorism, mission planning and disaster management. The project is funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
The three members of International Space Station Expedition 15 have a lot of unpacking to do. A Russian Progress supply vehicle docked safely with the station Aug. 5, delivering food, water, fuel and other supplies. Among the 5,111 lb. of supplies inside the cargo vehicle were replacements for the six German-built flight-control computers that failed simultaneously while the space shuttle Discovery was docked to the ISS during the STS-117/13.A station assembly mission.
