Thales as developed and certified its TopFlight satellite communications system to meet Arinc 781 standards. The product, now in series production, was developed initially for regional jets as well as large corporate aircraft. After flight trials concluding next March, the first passengers will be able to connect with the new system starting in the second quarter of 2008, according to Peter Hitchcock, the director of avionics systems for Thales Aerospace.
Component manufacture for the U.K.’s Environmentally Friendly Engine (EFE) technology validation program is now underway, with a first engine run anticipated for the Rolls-Royce-led project in mid-2008. Ian Ritchey, Rolls-Royce’s chief engineer for the EFE, says work is also underway to upgrade an engine test cell at the company’s Bristol site for the program. The EFE will test lean-burn combustors and high-pressure turbine technologies to reduce levels of carbon dioxide and oxides of nitrogen emissions.
Etihad Airways is facing serious questions about its crew scheduling procedures and ultimately its safety standards following a near controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accident at Pakistan’s Peshawar airport, several industry sources say.
It’s time to turn down the heat on Washington’s sound bite-driven debate over how to fund modernization of the U.S. air traffic control (ATC) system, and instead shed a little light on some fundamental business questions on the issue. We risk triggering the law of unintended consequences if Congress makes decisions on how to modernize and expand the system without having answers to these basic questions.
The results are in from Aviation Week & Space Technology’s 11th annual Top-Performing Companies study. This year’s rankings of the industry’s publicly-traded aerospace and defense companies begin on p. 54; airline rankings start on p. 68. Articles that analyze the trends emerging from the study and comments from a team of industry analysts who closely studied the results begin on p. 52. Results include a one-year snapshot of how each company ranks and a measure of how its score has changed during the past five years.
Isavia, Iceland’s air navigation service provider, and the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) plan to set up a limited company, with equal shares held by the two parties, for handling user charges for joint operations of their aeronautical communications facilities. The centers in Gufunes, Iceland, and Ballygireen, near Shannon, provide high-frequency radio and other communications services to aircraft over the North Atlantic.
A combination of a more than 25% cost overrun to the $5.8-billion program and technical problems would be enough to kill most Pentagon efforts. But, this one-time acquisition darling of the Air Force seems impervious to such travails. With 600 weapons already in the field, USAF appears to have staved off a termination—for now.
The Pentagon complains that Iranian weapons and explosives have killed U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Now Turkey says its soldiers along the border with Iraq are being killed by U.S. weapons. Nabi Sensoy, Turkey’s ambassador to Washington, says weapons and explosives the U.S. supplied to the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq are winding up in the hands of a terrorist group that uses them to attack Turkish troops patrolling the Kurdish-populated areas of Turkey. “We know there have been a number of weapons of American origin,” Sensoy says. “We know that the U.S.
The emergence of Railteam—an ambitious new strategic alliance created by the leading European high-speed train operators—signals that next-generation surface transport is poised to play a growing role in short/medium-haul markets. Railteam executives believe high-speed trains have evolved into a viable alternative to air transportation. Moreover, establishing a unified network “helps to change the perception that cross-border travel by train is difficult,” they say.
Israel’s Space Communication Ltd. will pay Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) some $365 million for a fourth Amos-class communications satellite, which will be placed in a new orbital slot to provide coverage in Asia. Amos 4, a 3.4-ton high-power Ku- and Ka-band spacecraft, is to be placed in a slot between 64 and 76 deg. E. Long. for the expanded coverage. Set for launch in the third quarter of 2012, it will have a projected service life of 12 years. Spacecom’s Amos 1 and 2 and its planned Amos 3 all operate or will operate from 4 deg. W.
In a reversal of fortune for Alcoa, the dominant aluminum supplier to the aerospace industry withdrew its $29-billion offer to buy Alcan after the Canadian company struck a $38-billion deal on July 12 to sell itself to Rio Tinto, a major mining company based in the U.K. and Australia. If the deal goes through, the new Rio Tinto subsidiary will aim to be a major player in the global aluminum industry. Global headquarters of Rio Tinto Alcan would be in Montreal led by Alcan CEO Dick Evans.
Selex Sensors and Airborne Systems is developing a small vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle, the Damselfly, with a subscale demonstrator first flown in April. Additional flight trials will be carried out in November at the Parc Aberporth range in Wales.
Having finally killed the Lockheed Martin Joint Common Missile (JCM), which was to replace the Pentagon’s Hellfire, Maverick and TOW missile families, the Army has begun discussing with industry a new competition for that capability. The Army has released a draft request for proposals for the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile.
Snecma’s Solid Propellant Div. and SNPE-MBDA joint venture Roxel have been selected to develop and produce the boost and transition propulsion system for MBDA’s Naval Scalp cruise missile. Development of the system, which is to equip frigate and submarine-launched weapons for the French navy, is expected to take four years.
Legal tension is increasing in Europe between leading low-fare carriers, led by Ryanair, and the European Commission and national governments over their respective business practices at airports. In its latest move, Ryanair says it will challenge the EC in the European courts for Brussels’ failure to act on state-aid complaints the low-fare carrier filed last year. Ryanair alleges that Air France, Lufthansa, Alitalia and Olympic Airways have benefited unjustly from financial support schemes.
It was good to see you continuing to provide the “S” of AW&ST in the two articles on the Dawn mission (AW&ST July 2, p. 56). However, I must take issue with the statement that the asteroid Vesta was formed 4.5 billion years ago, as that is a theory based on one selected measurement, among a number of indicators of the age of the Solar System.
This year’s Top-Performing Companies (TPC) ranking of “Most Improved” large companies demonstrates that attention to operational excellence and taking advantage of scale economies pays off. Rolls-Royce, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Honeywell and Lockheed Martin have employed these strategies to move up toward the top of the Most Improved category. Additionally, somewhat smaller but more acquisitive companies such as Precision Castparts and Goodrich have been highly rewarded by the marketplace as well, as this graphic prepared by Deloitte Consulting illustrates (see chart).
BMI says it will grow its fleet under a $750-million expansion plan. The goal is to develop new long- and medium-range routes from London, through the acquisition of five Airbus A330s and five A321s. The wide-body purchase will bring BMI’s fleet of A330s to eight, with the next delivery to take place in the spring. The A321s will go to British Mediterranean Airways, which BMI hopes to fully integrate by Oct. 28. The new routes and frequencies for British Mediterranean are to be announced soon.
A typical U.S. soldier going on a four-day dismounted mission carries as much as 40 lb. of batteries and rechargers. Defense Dept. officials say they’ll pay $1 million to anyone who can slash that “wearable power” number to about 2 lb. per day. That means cutting the load by about 80% to “four kilograms, four days.” Entries, due by Nov. 30, are expected to include anything from solar power generators to devices that capture power created by boots striking the ground.
While it may be a romantic notion to compare the Dawn spacecraft’s ion engine to the warp propulsion of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, the similarity ends at the blue glow. In the fictional world of the NCC-1701-D pictured (AW&ST July 2, p. 57), the glow emanates from sets of coils in the long nacelles, energized by a furious matter-antimatter plasma. Ions don’t push the ship in the least.
Space shuttles will be able to remain docked at the International Space Station for days longer at a time if new power-transfer hardware set for testing on the upcoming ISS-assembly mission checks out. With the shuttle fleet scheduled to retire in a little more than three years, managers hope the extra time will give shuttle astronauts a better chance to complete all of their remaining station-assembly tasks.
For the third time this month NASA has delayed launch of the Dawn asteroid orbiter, now scheduled for early September. NASA managers, including Administrator Michael Griffin, decided on the further delay to September after additional evaluation of a July 15 launch target. July 15 was initially chosen after the agency decided weather and tracking system capabilities would not support a July 9 attempt.
Britain is developing advanced propulsion and stealth technologies to allow it to choose between very low observable and high-speed cruise missile concepts for future long-range strike needs. The Defense Ministry hopes to begin making key procurement choices on its Future Long-Range Cruise Missile (FLRCM) around 2015. At that point, the ministry would like to be able to proceed with the “Initial Gate” stage of its procurement process.
Due to a printing error, the first unclassified images of a secret Lacrosse imaging radar reconnaissance spacecraft appeared incorrectly in last week’s issue (AW&ST July 9, p. 28). The images of the 15-ton National Reconnaissance Office Lacrosse 2 spacecraft show the satellite flying at about 400 mi. altitude. They show the Lacrosse, with a body the size of a school bus, with changing Sun angles illuminating its 25-ft.-dia. steerable synthetic aperture radar antenna. The antenna provides 2-3-ft.
