With 90% of its detailed design elements completed, Boeing says it is finding the mid-size 787 has a 2-3% better economic performance than the 20% overall gain it originally predicted. The improvements are most prominent in predicted maintenance costs, although the airplane is "a bit better on fuel burn" as well, says 787 General Manager Mike Bair. Boeing has forecast that the 787 will have a 20% better fuel burn than the 767 it is replacing. The new improvements have become evident as the 787's detailed design progresses.
Present and potential NASA partners in human space exploration will spend the coming year figuring out how they can fit their goals and capabilities into U.S. plans to start building a permanent outpost at one of the Moon's poles by 2020. NASA hopes its open invitation to commercial and international spacefaring interests to come along for the ride back to the Moon will herald an open-ended "collaboration" in moving humankind beyond what one exploration manager called the "coastal regions of low Earth orbit."
Philippine Airlines will operate the Boeing 777-300ER as its new long-haul aircraft, delivering a defeat to Airbus's A340-600. The carrier has bought two of the aircraft for delivery in 2009, leased two from GE Commercial Aviation Services and taken options on another pair from Boeing.
Doug Greenlaw (see photo) has been appointed director of the Washington-based Raytheon Virtual Technology Corp. He has been vice president-business development. Greenlaw succeeds Jack Harrington, who is now vice president-command and control systems for Raytheon Network Centric Systems.
USN Rear Adm. (lower half) Charles E. Smith has been named vice commander of Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego. He has been assistant commander for acquisition at Naval Air Systems Command, NAS Patuxent River, Md.
Sonya Sepahban (see photo) has been appointed head of mission excellence in the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Space Technology Sector, Redondo Beach, Calif. She was vice president-systems engineering.
A French government-industry research consortium this week will call for proposals for advancing automation and security in aviation and space systems. It's the third round of bidding by the 18-month-old Aeronautics and Space Research Foundation, launched with an initial €18-million ($24-million) sum--half provided by the state and half by industry. Five projects were recently established to investigate noise mitigation technologies.
ADS-B TECHNOLOGIES OF ANCHORAGE, ALASKA, expects to complete its major Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast system installation for the Civil Aviation Flight University of China early next year. The university's main campus is in Guanghan, in Sichuan Province. Five of six Sensis Corp. ground-based transceiver stations are now installed in Sichuan and Henan provinces, and 110 of 150 of the university's training aircraft have been equipped with Garmin GDL90 universal access transceivers (UATs) that can be tracked by the ground stations.
The NTSB is urging airlines to voluntarily change how they calculate landing distances on contaminated runways until the FAA completes its rulemaking process to implement the change. The procedures include assessing performance based on actual conditions at time of arrival not time of dispatch, and adding a 15% safety margin.
Four private equity firms have bowed out of Eutelsat in two separate deals in what could prelude a new satcom alliance (AW&ST Sept. 11, p. 23). On Dec. 5, Nebozzo, Cinven and Goldman Sachs sold a combined 32% stake to Abertis, a Spanish telecom company. A remaining 2.8% stake was transferred to Lehman Brothers--a former Eutelsat shareholder--to prevent the sale from triggering a mandatory takeover bid. On Dec. 7, Eurazeo unloaded its 25.5% stake to French bank Caisse Nationale des Depots.
David Balloff (see photo) has been named Washington-based vice president-external relations for the U.S. for Embraer. He was assistant FAA administrator for its Office of Government and Industry Affairs.
US Airways chose Delta Air Lines for a merger over Northwest Airlines because a linkup with Delta would create more value even if Northwest's transpacific franchise were factored into the equation, according to US Airways Chief Operating Officer Scott Kirby. He says a merged US Airways-Delta would drive $710 million in costs out of the combined system and create $935 million in network synergies.
The Transportation Security Administration continues to evaluate passenger body-scanning machines, and plans to test the latest American Science & Engineering machine in Phoenix in a few weeks.
The United Arab Emirates inaugurated Falcon Aviation Services, a helicopter charter and aviation services provider based at Bateen Airport, near the center of Abu Dhabi. In addition to charter and maintenance work, the company has a search-and-rescue operation and supports the UAE military with a fleet of Bell 412EPs and AgustaWestland AW139s. "We are aiming to [expand] our modern fleet of helicopters and other aircraft types to satisfy the . . . region's growing number of passengers," said Falcon Aviation Services Chairman Salem Al Kayoumi.
Paul Foley has been elected 2007 chairman of the Washington-based Regional Airline Assn. Foley, president and CEO of MAIR Holdings, succeeds Horizon Air President Jeff Pinneo.
Lockheed Martin has tentatively scheduled initial flight of the first production F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter for early this week, kicking off a six-year, 12,000-hr. test program involving 15 aircraft in three different configurations. "We are on track to fly and the airplane is performing very well, as expected," says Doug Pearson, vice president of the F-35 Integrated Test Force. As of late last week, technicians were completing installation of flightworthy components in the airplane, replacing units that were approved for ground tests only.
Thales has concluded a deal to buy the space and homeland security businesses of Alcatel-Lucent for $2 billion in stock and cash, subject to conclusion of a European Commission antitrust investigation.
A private spaceflight industry, dubbed "new space" by some of its proponents, is steadily emerging from the dusty desert hangars and closely guarded office-park high bays that incubated it, ready to leap off launch pads across the globe into a role self-consciously reminiscent of civil aviation 80 years ago.
"Activity in the marketplace continues unabated" for the 787, Program Manager Mike Bair said last week as Boeing recorded its 458th order or commitment. The owners of Tel Aviv-based Arkia Israeli Airlines will buy two 787-9 stretch models. Also, Boeing listed two previously unidentified customers. Geneva-based PrivatAir is buying one 787-8 and becomes the first executive jet service to offer the 787. First Choice Airways, a European launch customer, added two 787-8s to the six aircraft it bought in 2004. Boeing picked up more orders for the 737-900ER from its U.S.
Varied experts concur that the choice between liquid hydrogen and synthetic kerosene should be made by 2020-30 in order to define a workable new generation of commercial transports. However, aerospace research agencies and aircraft manufacturers don't endorse that view.
JetBlue Airways' reduction in capacity growth for the remainder of the decade will entail a cutback in Embraer 190 deliveries to 10 from 18 per year, plus additional aircraft sales, leases or assignments in the near term, the company said. Capacity in 2007 will increase 14-17% instead of the 18-20% planned earlier. Under the new EMB 190 delivery schedule, JetBlue will have 23 aircraft at the end of this year instead of 26, and will take 10 per year through 2011, 11 per year in 2012-13 and six in 2014.
Craig Laurence Dobbin (1935-2006), founder of the CHC Helicopter Corp., and Fred Harvey Hitchins (1904-72), the official post-war Royal Canadian Air Force historian, have been named for posthumous induction into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Also to be inducted is Stanley William Deluce, founder of several regional airlines in Canada including White River Air and Air Ontario.
The international aviation community is applauding the Dec. 5 decision by a Brazilian court to release the American pilots of the Embraer Legacy 600 involved in the Sept. 29 midair collision with a Gol Airlines 737. The crippled 737 crashed in the Amazon jungle, killing 154 people; the Legacy landed safely. Capt. Joseph Lepore and First Officer Jean Paul Paladino had been detained by federal police who launched a criminal investigation paralleling the probe by Brazil's aviation authority.
Rita M. Cuddihy has been appointed to the board of directors of Frontier Airlines. She is a former US Airways president/CEO and is senior vice president of Marriott International's Renaissance North America.
The Iraq Study Group wants an overhaul of war budgeting as well as war policy. For four years the war has been funded through emergency supplemental requests drawn up outside the normal budgeting process, the panel complains. Spending isn't offset by budget cuts elsewhere. Requests bypass the congressional armed services committees and are reviewed only perfunctorily by the appropriations committees.
