Talk about a nice return on investment. Five months after paying $630 million for Textron's Fastening Systems unit, private equity firm Platinum Equity is selling off the business's aerospace operations--which account for just 1/18 of total revenues--for $300 million. The buyer is aerospace metals supplier Precision Castparts Corp. (PCP). Mark Donegan, PCP's CEO, says the old Textron operation, which manufactures aerospace rivets and blind bolts, will fill a gap in the PCP's product line.
Threats from Northrop Grumman, the Pentagon's No. 3 revenue-generating defense contractor, to back out of a $200-billion competition with Boeing to build new aerial refuelers indicate that the company may be changing its approach to high-stakes competitions, according to industry officials.
The new House Armed Services Committee chairman, Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), is shying away from talk of "savings" or tradeoffs among military spending priorities--in fact, he's not highlighting any cuts, all while calling for more counterinsurgency and extra-conventional capabilities. Skelton repeatedly has said he will leave details of program oversight to his subcommittee chairmen, and his comments so far don't portend dramatic fiscal realignment. "I don't think it's a choice between boots on the ground and high technology," Skelton says (AW&ST Jan. 1, p. 30).
TNT Airways is expanding the work KLM Engineering and Maintenance will perform, adding overhaul of two Boeing 747-400 Extended Range Freighters. TNT already has contracted with KLM to perform Boeing 737/QC fleet support, as well as work on BAE146 regional jets. The 747 arrangement covers engineering services, maintenance control and component services, line maintenance and A- and C-checks.
Oasis Hong Kong Airlines is negotiating to feed traffic to and from EasyJet and Ryanair, Chief Executive Stephen Miller tells Reuters. It also is talking to the British and Irish budget carriers about joint marketing, he says, adding that Oasis may make an initial public offering of its shares in 2009 or 2010. The company, a no-frills operator using former Singapore Airlines 747-400s, began operations only two months ago.
Air Force Aermacchi MB.339 (12) Aero Vodochody L-39 (21) Aerospatiale SA330 (2) Agusta A109 (2) Boeing 727-200 Adv (1) Cessna Citation II (1) Dassault-Breguet/Dornier Alphajet E (17) Dornier Do 128-6 (16) Dornier Do 228-201 (1) Dornier Do 228-212 (5) Dornier Do 28D (14) Eurocopter AS332 (4) Lockheed C-130H (5) Lockheed C-130H-30 (2) Mil Mi-34 (3) Mil Mi-35 (5) Navy
Gerald Tsai, Jr., has been named non-executive chairman of the New York-based Sequa Corp. He succeeds the late Norman E. Alexander, who was executive chairman. Tsai, a private investor, has been a director of Sequa and was chairman of the Delta Life Corp. and Primerica Corp.
Mark H. Ronald, the recently retired president/CEO of BAE Systems Inc., has been named to the board of directors of Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems.
Expendable launch vehicles, despite their lower up-front development costs and unchallenged dominance in the global launch market, have not squelched the dreams of reusable launch vehicle (RLV) designers.
The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III program appears to have won a new customer with the recent decision by 13 NATO nations to acquire at least four of the big airlifters to operate in a pool to be based at Ramstein AB, Germany. These aircraft, however, will be delivered from the fleet of white tails that Boeing is manufacturing "on spec." The first is set to be delivered in late 2007, and all would be operational by the end of 2009.
The U.S. Air Force is exploring the fielding of a new cadre of one or more types of long-range strike weapons around 2030-40, although this third phase of the program remains highly conceptual. Among the potential manned vehicle technologies under evaluation is a hypersonic spaceplane capable of Mach 5 speeds, which could be technologically feasible by about 2030.
Provided with the Assistance of Alexander Velovich (Russian Correspondent, Forecast Interational)
The top Russian propulsion research institute for air-breathing engines, TsIAM Central Institute of Aviation Engines has test facilities in Lytkarino near Moscow, and is Russia's answer to the NASA Glenn Research Center and USAF Arnold Engineering Development Center. Rocket engine research is undertaken by TsNIIMash (Central Research Institute of Machine Building), which is in Korolev, near Moscow. TsNIIMash is also the primary research facility for strategic missiles.
Bell Helicopter and AgustaWestland have gone their separate ways in development of a new medium twin; Sikorsky and Bell are exploring a range of new technologies to result in significant performance improvements with their respective X2 coaxial demonstrator and Modular Affordable Product Line (MAPL) research projects; MD Helicopters' new owner is aggressively restructuring the company's supply chain to address long-standing delivery bottlenecks; Sikorsky is shifting some commercial work to new acquisition Schweizer in order to cope with swollen military backlogs; and Euroc
Boom times in aircraft manufacturing, a robust global economy and substantial technical innovation are driving civil avionics companies toward some of their best years ever. Rockwell Collins, for example, foresees double-digit growth in avionics sales in 2007 for both the original equipment and aftermarket sectors.
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The U.S. Navy is fielding a new system to familiarize tactical aircraft crews with their personal hypoxia symptoms, precluding a need for more expensive and riskier low-pressure chamber training every four years. Aviators are subject to four types of hypoxia, but the new regimen specifically teaches them to recognize and respond to "hypoxic hypoxia," a lack of oxygen associated with high altitudes.
Raytheon's facility in Tucson, Ariz., has tested a prototype, solid-state laser weapon that has been combined with the standard Phalanx shipboard defense system. The cannon's rapid search, track and engagement capabilities are used to direct the laser onto targets. The prototype system detonated 60-mm. mortar rounds at a range of more than 550 yd. It addition to de- monstrating weapons capability, the six-month Laser Area Defense System program was to offer alternatives to chemical lasers.
