Congressional Democrats who beat back last year's Transportation Dept. attempt to relax foreign-ownership rules for airlines are leery of the newly signed first-stage open-skies agreement with the European Union. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, says the committee will keep tabs on whether the pact results in "authorizing foreign control that would not have been authorized under prior policies," and whether negotiations toward a second-stage deal permit increased foreign control.
With just two months to go before rollout, the first Boeing 787 assemblies are beginning to arrive at Everett, Wash., already fitted with internal equipment and ready to be "snapped together" to create the first of the mid-sized transports. The aircraft will not be a prototype, but a production unit that will be delivered to a customer after test flying and will, Boeing says, fully meet the contract specification.
As the ground war in Iraq continues, the U.S. Air Force's plan to look beyond counter-insurgencies toward a future bomber may be a hard sell in Washington. A Pentagon and Capitol Hill--distracted with the path ahead in Iraq--may deem discussion of a new bomber to thwart adversaries in North Korea or possibly China, premature. USAF is beginning to make its case for the system. Against this political backdrop, however, the service is walking another fine line: explaining why it is seemingly playing it safe on the bomber's requirements.
PIPER AIRCRAFT INC. is entering the wind-tunnel testing phase in its development of the PiperJet. The tests will include an analysis of a natural laminar flow wing designed for the airplane. Piper's first foray into the jet market, the six-passenger PiperJet, would feature a conventional aluminum alloy airframe and a single Williams FJ44-3AP engine. Although the powerplant is rated at 3,000 lb. thrust at sea level, it would be de-rated to 2,400 lb. thrust for the PiperJet application. The company says the jet would cost about $2.1 million (2006 dollars).
A June 8 space shuttle launch target for Atlantis on the STS-117 mission to the International Space Station is becoming increasingly fragile, as rollout of the vehicle to Launch Complex 39A has slipped a week to about May 12. NASA and United Space Alliance managers had hoped that an Atlantis main engine changeout and repair of hail damage to its external tank would allow rollout by about May 6. But they have added an extra week for work yet to be done in the Kennedy Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).
Thales Alenia Space will build a new communications satellite, Thor 6, for high-power, direct-to-home TV applications under a new contract from Telenor. The 36-transponder K u-band spacecraft, to enter service in mid-2009, will serve the Nordic countries, and Central and Eastern Europe. It was the first telecom satellite award for the manufacturer since it was taken over by Thales.
Boeing has begun testing the AC-130U gunship, armed with new 30-mm. cannon, at Hurlburt Field, Fla. The company is modifying four aircraft for the USAF Special Operations Command with the longer-barrel weapons that offer increased stand-off range, improved first-shot accuracy, and a suite of electronic and infrared countermeasures for enhanced self-protection. The 30-mm. weapons will replace the 40-mm. and 25-mm. cannon.
Andre Wall (see photo) has been appointed chief operating officer for Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America for Zurich-based Jet Aviation. He was president/CEO of MTU Maintenance of Berlin.
Bombardier is starting to evaluate the latest data on potential engine offerings for the CSeries narrowbody the Canadian aircraft maker wants to put in service in 2013. Although taken off the front burner last year, company officials have continued to talk to suppliers and also significantly altered the design of the two aircraft, the C110 and C130, that comprise the CSeries family.
EADS CASA has received a follow-on order from Lockheed Martin for five HC-235A multimission aircraft, which are part of the U.S. Coast Guard Deepwater program. Deliveries are to be completed by the end of 2008. The total order for the twin-turboprops for Deepwater now stands at eight, with up to 28 more orders possible.
Hailed as the world's largest building when it opened May 1, 1967, Boeing's Everett factory is about to accommodate a fourth final assembly line under its 98.3-acre roof. Major sections for the 787 have been arriving for weeks but the company will officially celebrate the start of final assembly in a May 21 ceremony.
Scientists and engineers on the 50-person team operating the New Horizons planetary probe will start planning for its July 2015 arrival at Pluto this year, incorporating lessons and scientific results from the nuclear-powered spacecraft's Feb. 28 flyby of Jupiter.
When I read "The Vanishing Aerospace Engineer" (AW&ST Feb. 5, p. 44) I immediately though of Yogi Berra's classic "It's deja vu all over again." When I graduated from high school in 1949 I was told that becoming an engineer was a fool thing to do because that fall engineers were still walking the streets looking for a job. Since 1953, I have had at least six positions and excellent experiences working on everything from locomotives to the space shuttle SRBs.
Existing equipment can play a role in screening air cargo for explosives, but the jury is still out on whether the machines will be fast enough to scan most or all of passenger jet cargo.
Eight premier aerospace companies, the European Union and the European Space Agency are collaborating in a management fiasco that could give commercial space a black eye. The object of everyone's attention is the Galileo satellite navigation system, and "collaborating" might not be the right word for what's going on, implying as it does the idea of working jointly to achieve a common purpose. The problem is: Nothing is being done jointly, and purposes are not common.
President Vladimir Putin cleared creation of AirUnion airline, combining five smaller carriers into a single operator and establishing what could be the third largest in the Russian air transport market after Aeroflot and S7 Airlines. At least 51% of AirUnion will be controlled by private shareholders, with the rest belonging to the government. Currently, all five airlines operate as an alliance led by Krasnoyarsk-based Krasair Airlines; AirUnion should be established by November.
Growing customer demand for unique identification and the ability to trace parts has prompted the U.K.'s Pryor Marking Technology to begin a dot-matrix part-marking service that the company claims is less susceptible to industrial damage than bar coding. Depending on the application, Pryor uses lasers, electrochemical etching or data pinging machines to imprint parts with dot-matrix patterns and serial numbers. Typical applications include hot-section parts in gas turbine engines, such as turbine blades (see photo).
Marv Sambur has been named to the board of directors of Proxy Aviation Systems Inc., Germantown, Md. A former assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, he also serves on the Air Force Science Advisory Board and National Academy of Science Studies Board.
German and U.S. scientists still will have to wait until 2009 to start gathering test data using the Sofia (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) infrared sensor aircraft, but the program took a big step forward late last month with the first flight of the highly modified Boeing 747SP.
The air cargo industry, consolidating into a handful of global players and building with new and larger capacity freighters and multiple passenger-to-freighter conversion programs, is living up to the axiom long associated with this vital segment of commercial aviation: Bigger Is Always Better
Bjorn Naf has been named chief operating officer of Bahrain-based Gulf Air. He was CEO of Kenya-based Transafrik International and had been executive vice president-product and services for Swiss International Air Lines.
Singapore Technologies Engineering has extended its push into the market for supporting startup Chinese airlines. The company says its components division will support 15 A320- family aircraft of Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines for seven years under a $16-million contract. STAero previously signed up United Eagle, China United, Spring and Okay airlines, all of which are not aligned with the Chinese government.
Cessna Aircraft Co. has delivered the first Citation Encore+. The 11-seat business jet replaces the original Encore and features a higher gross weight, Fadec engine controls, increased payload, new Collins Pro Line 21 avionics and a redesigned interior.
A man-portable surface-to-air missile was the cause of the fatal crash of a British Lynx Mk. 7 utility helicopter in Basra, Iraq, on May 6, 2006, according to a U.K. Defense Ministry Board of Inquiry report. All five British personnel on the helicopter were killed. The report, heavily censored in some areas, does not identify the type of missile, but SA-7 Grail variants and the SA-14 Gremlin are candidates. The SA-14 is considerably more capable than the SA-7, and is fitted with a cooled infrared seeker.
Lockheed Martin has won a $23-million contract to start long-lead preparations for modernizing the first production C-5M Super Galaxy airlifter, as part of the U.S. Air Force's reliability enhancement and reengining program. The current engines are to be replaced with the commercial General Electric CF6-80C2, which is to provide a 22% increase in thrust, use 30% less runway on takeoff, and show 58% faster climb. The company also won a $54.5-million contract to provide 22 sniper targeting pods to Pakistan.
